Monday, October 19, 2015

Separated @ Birth: A True Love Story of Twin Sisters Reunited by Anaïs Bordier and Samantha Futerman

Title: Separated @ Birth: A True Love Story of Twin Sisters Reunited
Author: Anaïs Bordier and Samantha Futerman
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
Publication date: October 14, 2014
Pages: 304
Source/format: Hardcover from Library

Rating: ☆☆☆ 1/2

Synopsis (from Goodreads.com):

Imagine one day opening Facebook and reading a message from a stranger that says, “I think we might be twins…don’t freak out…”

It all began when design student Anaïs Bordier viewed a YouTube video and saw her own face staring back. After some research, Anaïs found that the Los Angeles actress Samantha Futerman was born in a South Korean port city called Busan on November 19, 1987—the exact same location and day that Anaïs was born. This propelled her to make contact—via Facebook. One message later, both girls wondered: Could they be twins?

Thus begins their remarkable journey to build a relationship as sisters, continents apart. Over Facebook, Twitter, and Skype, they learned that they shared much more than a strikingly similar appearance. Eventually, they traveled to Korea together to discover more about the land of their separation. One of Facebook's Top Ten Stories of 2013, Separated @ Birth is a story that spans the world and peels back some of the complex and emotional layers of foreign adoption.



My Thoughts

Twins + Sisters = Twinsters.

Anaïs Bordier and Samantha (Sam) Futerman were separated at birth in South Korea. Anaïs was adopted by a French couple and Sam was adopted by an American couple. Two decades went by as the girls blossomed to young women living their lives not knowing they have a twin. Through YouTube and Facebook, the twins were reunited in a heartfelt way. Both the Bordier and Futerman families united through laughter and tears.

I saw the documentary Twinsters before picking up Separated @ Birth. The book goes into more detail about the twins's miraculous story. Although I was excited to read the biography, the book needs some more editing. The idea of the story is compelling but the length of the book could have been shorten since there was a lot of repetition in the book. I did appreciate the photos of Anaïs and Sam in the biography. It provided a nice visual way of explaining the twins' childhoods. 

Separated @ Birth is a good companion to Twinsters and I recommend seeing the documentary before reading the biography. The documentary gives the audience a good grasp of Anaïs and Sam's story and the biography fills in the gaps with their thoughts and emotions about what is going on. The documentary feels more fluid compared to reading the biography. At times I feel the transitions in the biography are a bit choppy and often, I wanted to know more about what happened instead of what the young women are thinking. Sometimes the things they are thinking are drawn out and they do not focus on how they reunited. I want to read more about how the sisters came together and the impact it has on their family and their lives. I want to know more about the timeline of how these events are connected and how two individuals find out they are Twinsters. 

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