DUPLIKATE

With the Yale application deadline looming, Kate is stressed to the max as she attempts to balance her AP coursework, a needy boyfriend and her personal essay, which she just can’t seem to start. So when Rina, her sassy twin, pops out of Kate’s computer and into her bedroom, Kate feels her grip slipping—until she realizes that having a twin has benefits. Kate learns that she created Rina as her simulated self several years before in a computer game, where she’s been trapped ever since. Overjoyed to be sprung, Rina is happy to adopt Kate’s crushing workload, but when she gets too close to Kate’s friends and boyfriend, Kate knows she must send Rina back or she’ll kiss Yale and life as she knows it goodbye. Cheva introduces an intriguing concept that will resonate with today’s overcommitted teens, and she punctuates Kate’s narration with Rina’s diary entries (“Kate thinks my taste in clothes sucks. But...you know what her style is? Boring”). The premise is never truly flushed out, however, which creates holes and contributes to an ultimately predictable story. (Fiction. YA)