After reading the summary, it sounded like this book could have real potential, but it was a bit of a trainwreck. I thought that the story of the twins coming back together would be intense and take us on a journey, but it was so off the rails that I needed to finish it because I needed to see where it ended up. For me, it was disjointed, but to each their own. I felt like Alvina was a bit too disturbed and her weird blood lust and internal commentary was a bit off-putting.

3 out of 5 stars.

I'm going back through and doing reviews for ones I've missed. I have no idea why I requested this one as it is nothing I remotely am interested in.

A pretty funny book, if you’re in the mood for utter silliness.

I really wanted to enjoy Mad, but unfortunately found the characters one-dimensional and could not make it through.

It started out great. Alvie seemed like the kind of character you love to hate. She’s just entirely too annoying to like at all. Occasionally she has interesting moments but compared to the other characters (which she kills off), Alvie is completely one dimensional. I wanted to like it, but she’s just too irritating.

I am a sucker for any book about twins. I thought it would be funny to see how one twin pretended to be the other when I read the summary for this novel. While this wasn't quite the funny read I was expecting it was packed full of crazy adventures, "accidental" murders, drugs, and tons of sex!

I'm with the negatives on this one... I just couldn't even skim past her crude, rude, utterly irredeemable personality to even find dark humor in this one. I get that she's supposed to be unlikable, and understand that's the contrast and the point. Maybe that's enough of a redeeming quality for some readers, but it didn't do anything for me and with so many other books out there, I couldn't justify spending the time on this one...

Fast paced writing and a thriller to boot. Twins, one who is 'rich' and one who is 'poor'. Exotic locations. There are humorous elements and this book could easily fall into several categories - women's fictions, thrillers, erotic thriller...it's got everything.

I'm excited to read the rest of this series!!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book!

The Dark Twin on a Rampage

Alvie is downing in her life. She’s drinking too much, eating crazily, and hating her job as a classified advertising representative. Her identical twin sister, Beth, is everything she’s not. She’s the good twin, her mother’s favorite, married to a rich, hot, Italian with a villa in Taormina. She also has an adorable baby son.

Alvie’s life has just about reached bottom when her sister starts calling begging her to visit. Alvie can’t stand the thought until she loses her job and is thrown out of her apartment. Suddenly a stay in an Italian villa sounds pretty good even it she has to see her perfect sister.

Things get more complicated when Beth asks Alvie to pretend to be her for a few hours so she can meet someone. It sounds simple enough, even a chance to take over her sister’s life, but when Beth turns up dead the game becomes significantly more challenging and deadly.

Alvie is a great narrator. She’s crazy and foul-mouthed, but also amusing. She’s such a strong character that the other characters in the book seem pale in comparison If you enjoy eccentric characters, you’ll like this book. However, there’s explicit sex, violence, and cursing. If those things turn you off, this isn’t your book. Mad is the first book in a trilogy. It will be interesting to see what Alvie gets up to next.

I received this book from Dutton for this review.

This book started so well .... Identical twin sisters - a foreign location - swapping identities ..... I was hooked and really drawn into what I thought was going to be a great twisty turning plot. However towards the end I found some of the story line a little unbelievable ..... Especially the mindless killings which were described as if it was nothing and quite unrealistic
Overall a good read but let me down in parts

I couldn't get through this one. Alvie the main character was so off putting to me I just couldn't. I am sure this book is meant to be absurd and fun . And I did laugh at times. At the end of the day I DNF around 50%

A very easy to read book, I am an identical twin and found it quite interesting from the twin perspective - I enjoyed this and read it in 2 days.

My mouth hung open throughout the reading of this book, which definitely pushed its limits.

I laughed out loud so many times while reading this and my boyfriend probably has a bruise from the amount of times I poked him in order to get his attention because I just had to share the amount of hilarious things that were written.

Alvie is abrasive. She's over the top. She's ridiculous. She's absurd. You're not meant to like her. I loved her--I loved to hate her, really. I cannot fathom so much as contemplating the actions that she took or having her priorities and desires, but she sure cracked me up.

I felt like the latter half kind of got too much for me--I enjoyed the lighter side of things, but the mafia did get involved, there were guns, and there was blood. I laughed less and was open-mouthed more with incredulity at the absurd events that were taking place. Very few of the characters in this book were actually as they seemed or as I had predicted them to be.

The plot similarly became ridiculous. The book started off as a more explicit sort of Kinsella novel with a less likable protagonist and much stranger scenarios, but then turned into a kind of mystery, then to a thriller, then just to an absurdist telling of a story.

Put your judgemental side away and read this book right now--it's sure to have you in hysterics. I'm cautiously but eagerly anticipating the next book.

Alvie is such a person with not one redeeming quality, that I couldn't even get through the book. I thought it was going to be light, fluffly, smutty with a little murder but it was a disappointment.