Sarah Miller's account of Violet and Daisy, conjoined twins born in Britain and basically abandoned to the care of a greedy midwife, is a thorough look at their sad lives. I believe this is marketed as a mid-grade juvenile book, but I'd recommend this to adult readers, too. It is always sad to read about children who never had anyone who loved them and who never really had a childhood.

I was drawn to Sarah Miller's Violet & Daisy because last year I read and loved her account of the Dionne Quints' lives in The Miracle and Tragedy of the Dionne Quintuplets. I was hoping for much of the same with Violet & Daisy, a book about a set of conjoined twins who were thrust into the spotlight from birth and exploited for the entirety of their lives.

I had never heard of Violet and Daisy Hilton before reading this young adult nonfiction piece about their lives, but Miller's book will ensure that I don't forget about them anytime soon. Born to an unwed mother in England, the girls already faced scrutiny for that alone, not to mention the fact that they were conjoined at the base of their spine. They were adopted out to a woman who exploited them from the backroom of her pub, allowing patrons to take a peep at their conjoined bodies if they paid a little something extra. From there, the girls were put on display at amusement parks, circuses, sideshows, and vaudeville, where they experienced much success by showcasing their musical talents, not to mention the novelty of their conjoined bodies. The Hilton sisters would amass a significant fortune, of which they would only ever see a fraction. Those who exploited them, also stole from them, making this story of conjoined twins triumphing in spite of their condition also a tragedy.

Miller's Violet and Daisy is a detailed account of the Hilton sisters' lives, from birth to their unfortunate death. Violet and Daisy's story has many holes and contradictions, but Miller attempts to piece them together without embellishment to tell a complete and fairly factual life history. Growing up in the spotlight, much was exaggerated and fabricated about the girls' lives and condition to draw in crowds, making the truth about Violet and Daisy's real life often murky here. However, skeptical readers should consider that Violet and Daisy themselves didn't even know the truth about their lives, so it is difficult to say for sure what is exactly true about their lives.

As I said with Miller's Dionne Quints book, I feel that Violet and Daisy is marketed to the wrong crowd. Gearing the book toward a YA audience feels wrong, as much of the storyline may be over their heads and/or not of interest. Violet and Daisy may be great for factual school projects, but may not hold the attention of a curious teen reader for long.

When I picked this out to read, I thought it was going to be a novelization, so I was a liittle disappointed, as I've long been fascinated by Violet and Daisy's story and read quite a bit about them already, seen documentaries, and even musicals about their story. It is compelling, but was a little repetitive for me given my background knowledge.I could def see students getting into the story, though!

I am always looking for nonfiction novel that read like fiction. This one fits the bill completely. The heartbreaking story of the Hilton sisters will long be remembered after you finish the book. I hope that in the final release of the book, it will include photos of their life. This is a great YA read!

This is the kind of book that can be read alongside something like the [book:The Miracle and Tragedy of the Dionne Quintuplets|29540394] in that it is so easy to go from the best of intentions to abusive and sensationalist. In the case of the Quintuplets, they were signed away from their parents because they were deemed unable to take care of them well and then put up as an attraction and studied. In the case of Violet and Daisy Hilton, their mother didn't want them and gave them over to a friend who exploited them until she signed them away to her exploitive husband. And because a life on the road as an attraction was all they knew, their abuse continued and was something that they thought they couldn't fight back against.

The story is fascinating and Miller brings in other historical conjoined twins who came before or were alive when the Hilton's were alive in providing general historical accuracy using documents including newspapers and the girls' own writing though everything is debatable based on the sensationalism (and for the girls their brainwashing at the hands of these people).

It does get a little long in the middle, explaining tit for tat about what happened in their lives that could have been summarized in places and which could really be told from the lens of their enslavement for money, yet she tries to show their empowerment at times as a glimmer of hope that they had each other even when all else failed them (including living a serene and calm end of life working at a shop and save story and having a home of their own before their death). I wanted that to be a stronger element of the story.

Violet and Daisy Hilton were brought up under the spotlight of their unique situation. They were conjoined twins who were born out of wedlock to a poor ignorant woman who was eager to get rid of them. She essentially sold her children to Mary Hilton, who by most accounts took custody with the intention of exploiting them.

The lengths to which Hilton allowed people to go to view the girls was absolutely deplorable, and it is even worse when you consider that this occurred during a time when "normal" women would never dream of being exposed in such a way. The trauma that this inflicted on the sisters is hard to imagine. Considering that no part of their young lives could be considered happy or even normal is pathetic.

The concept of "ballyhoo" is vital to understand the context of their story. This was the spiel that talkers would give to draw in crowds. The truth is speciously confuddled to make the sideshow acts as appealing to a wide audience as possible. This means that much of their true story was obfuscated even to them. They grew up in an environment where telling fibs/outright lies was so commonplace that as they grew older and began to manage their own lives and choices, they continued the practice. As a result, their own accounts of what happened is worthy of fact-checking. And this is where the low rating comes into play.

Sarah Miller has a bad tendency to give an account of a particular incident and afterward casually saying something to the effect of, "....But did it really happen?" and explaining the information that was JUST relayed in detail is unverifiable and PROBABLY not true. I have no problem with this information being included in the book, of course it has its place. My problem is with the technique of the reveal. I prefer to know in advance if what I'm reading is questionable.

Since so many schools are now questioning whether media literacy should be required coursework, I am disinclined to recommend this book to students who struggle with sussing out the difference between fact and falsehood. I WOULD however recommend this book if you have students who don't engage easily with biographies for non-required reading. The story of the sisters is truly engaging.

Daisy and Violet were talented, kind to those around them, and fiercely dedicated to one another. They were also conjoined twins whose mother gave them up when they were born. The couple who raised them thrust them into the world of performing when they were only toddlers. They were also constantly studied and evaluated by doctors when they were young.

Their lives and stories are not nearly as flowery as their names, but their story is spectacular and deserving to be shared. It may be a bit of a niche audience, but can find a home with those interested in intriguing biographies.

This book covers the lives of Violet and Daisy Hilton , conjoined twins from the early 1900s. From the moment their mother gave birth to them and rejected what she considered "monsters" and gave them up to Mary Hilton, who had assisted her with the births. Mary Hilton then exploited the twins all over the world until her death, when she willed the chiildren to her own daughter and her husband, who continued to exploit the girls for years until they were emancipated. Many events in this book seem to have not happened. After pages and pages of storyline, the narrator comes back to say that no news articles have been found to substantiate these caims. Time and time again, I found myself reading entire chapters and then being told that these things may not have happened and were probably all publicity stunts. That got old after the 5th chapter, Still, an interesting life into the lices of these twins who made tons of money, but were never really given that money.