Other than the whole "Wherefore art thou, Romeo?" crap, the single biggest running theme of this book is the sibling rivalry crap. Julie and Janice are twins, and they hate each other, but they have to come together to reverse the curse and get the treasure. Except they don't get the treasure, the "good girl" gets the guy and supposedly grows a pair of cahones and um, a heart?
I'm not sure which would have been worse, the assumption that OMG twins have to get along or the fact that this is a lifelong relationship issue that gets resolved to perfection within a week. Both of these are tropes that make me want to chuck things at anyone who writes about them (in almost any format) or talks about them. I hate it when people find out I have a twin and then next thing out of their mouth is, "Oh, you two must be so close." No, as a matter of fact, we are not. We never have been, and we probably never will be. And of course when I tell them that little piece of information they assume I'm just heartbroken about the whole thing. It really doesn't affect my life all that much anymore, to be honest.
For the last 10 years or so, my lack of a relationship with my brother has been a good thing for me. We are just now starting to talk again, and this is mostly for the sake of my nephew. What I have for my brother is not what I would call love, or trust, or respect. I'm not even sure I actually like my brother. There is just too much history there to drop everything and forget it all happened. I definitely feel that, being the wronged party in the relationship, my brother should bear the burden of making amends and renewing ties. He's doing okay. I doubt that I would feel the need to talk to him if he hadn't had children ... or at least ones that he recognized anyway.
I've often felt pressure from other people, particularly my mother, to get along with my brother. Even after everything he's done to me. But it wasn't really a problem that could just be fixed because someone wanted it to. I don't know if I actually care about having the perfect relationship with my brother. I think I would settle for not wanting to run into another room because I'm afraid he's going to reach out and hit me for no reason. I think we're almost at that point. Somehow I doubt we'll ever be "two peas in a pod," even if we do have to band together to save the world.
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