I'll Be You: A Novel

Janelle Brown

Apr 2022 · Sold by Random House

About this ebook

Two identical twin sisters and former child actors have grown apart—until one disappears, in this “cleverly crafted and psychologically nuanced” (Time) suspense novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Pretty Things.
 
“An addictive thriller that will keep readers burning through pages . . . sneakily hypnotic.”—Los Angeles Times

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Public Library, PopSugar

“You be me, and I’ll be you,” I whispered.

As children, Sam and Elli were two halves of a perfect whole: gorgeous identical twins whose parents sometimes couldn’t even tell them apart. They fell asleep to the sound of each other’s breath at night, holding hands in the dark. And once Hollywood discovered them, they became B-list child TV stars, often inhabiting the same role. 

But as adults, their lives have splintered. After leaving acting, Elli reinvented herself as the perfect homemaker: married to a real estate lawyer, living in a house just blocks from the beach. Meanwhile, Sam has never recovered from her failed Hollywood career, or from her addiction to the pills and booze that have propped her up for the last fifteen years. 

Sam hasn't spoken to her sister since her destructive behavior finally drove a wedge between them. So when her father calls out of the blue, Sam is shocked to learn that Elli’s life has been in turmoil: her husband moved out, and Elli just adopted a two-year-old girl. Now she’s stopped answering her phone and checked in to a mysterious spa in Ojai. Is her sister just decompressing, or is she in trouble? Could she have possibly joined a cult? As Sam works to connect the dots left by Elli’s baffling disappearance, she realizes that the bond between her and her sister is more complicated than she ever knew. 

I’ll Be You shows Janelle Brown at the top of her game: a story packed with surprising revelations and sharp insights about the choices that define our families and our lives—and could just as easily destroy them.

Ratings and reviews

This novel about identical twins trying to find their individuality is not terribly original, but it was engrossing to read at times after a slow start. Elli and Sam were child actors who leave acting and go their separate ways after a terrible argument. Elli is a housewife who wants to be a mom and Sam is in and out of rehab, never really finding her niche in the world. The discoveries that the two find out about each other is what makes this book good and worth a read. Neither is whole without

About the author

Janelle Brown is the New York Times bestselling author of Pretty Things, Watch Me Disappear, All We Ever Wanted Was Everything, and This Is Where We Live. An essayist and journalist, she has written for Vogue, The New York Times, Elle, Wired, Self, Los Angeles Times, Salon, and more. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their two children.