Book Review - The First Escape (The Dopple Ganger Chronicles) by G.P. Taylor

The First Escape (The Dopple Ganger Chronicles) by G.P. Taylor

Book Summary: At Isambard Dunstan’s School for Wayward Children, life is trouble for 14-year-old identical twins Sadie and Saskia Dopple and their friend, former thief Erik Morrisey Ganger. But what starts out as a perfectly normal day of food fights, rioting classmates, fires, and (yawn) threats of expulsion goes suddenly and horribly wrong when a mysterious, wealthy woman appears at the school and adopts Saskia . . . without her sister.

On her own in a mansion full of dark secrets, Saskia stumbles upon a conspiracy that threatens her very life. Meanwhile, in a desperate attempt to find her, Sadie and Erik escape from the orphanage with a gang of enemies in hot pursuit. Faced with madmen, wild dogs, treasure seekers, and an otherworldly visitor with a secret message, the trio must decide who to trust—and what to believe—if they are to survive long enough to find each other again.

Book Review:  This book is a completely different format than any I’ve read before.  It’s part graphic novel and part fiction novel.  The format was what first captured my attention when I purchased this book as a gift for Wally.  (He is the King of Graphic Novels around here.)  After he read it, I got to see what it was all about.  The story of the identical twins had me interested right away, I like twins…it’s that whole sharing a womb, sharing a lifeline, creepiness that draws me in.  With that said, the sisters did tend to blend together too often. 

With one sister being adopted and the other left behind, the story quickly picks up pace and moves into an adventure.  Sadie and Erik escape and run for their lives in order to find Saskia, whom is fighting for her life.  Some of the most amusing characters that you meet are too short lived.  There is a great scene with the dogs that tops all of the others, but the dogs are not central characters within the story.

Some of the artwork repeats the novel portion that was placed right before it, and repeating the storyline threw me off.  Bits of the art are difficult to make out as well, it may be a matter of perspective, but there were parts of the drawings that I just couldn’t figure out.  The story comes up a bit short as it doesn’t tie everything up neatly at the end, but it was written as part of a 6 book series.  Conveniently, there is a mystery left unsolved, which leads into book two, The Secret of Indigo Moon.

 

(I finally got my book review site together.  The whole family is in on it.  Check it out at Book Sake.)