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This is a fascinating nonfiction book about how the families of their two college daughters coped with the awful incident resulting in their identities being switched. The one daughter was killed in the accident while the other survived with extensive injuries. The parents of the one who was killed, Laura, thought the one in the hospital bed was their daughter and only found out after five weeks that she wasn't and that their daughter had really died. The parents of the one in the hospital, Whitney, were told she was killed in the accident and didn't know Whitney was actually alive until five weeks later.
Both were strong Christian families who relied on God to get them through and saw him provide for their needs. Several things really stood out to me:
(1) the faith of Whitney's sister, Carly, and how she gathered the family together for a time of praise and devotion to God the day they had so much to do to get things ready for the funeral. I liked how they hung a "Do not disturb until 11:00 a.m." sign on their front door so they could spend time with God and renew their strength;
(2) I thought creating the special blog for updating the injured girl's condition so people could pray and follow it was a great idea and it was amazing how many people did follow it and pray for her, even total strangers;
(3) I liked how when Whitney was in the hospital, she kept saying the name "Hunter" and no one knew who she was talking about because it wasn't really their daughter. It turned out to be her dog and finally, once her real parents got word and came, they brought the dog in to visit too! I thought that was so cool!
(4) I found the epilogue very interesting because is was written by Whitney and how she really didn't remember much of what had happened and found out details as she read the book herself!
Although I felt sadness for what the families went through, I was uplifted and encouraged in my own faith by all the scripture and their great Christian example. I'd say the moral of this is to go and make a positive ID yourself when you find out a family member was killed. Whitney's parents both just took the word of the coroner instead of checking out the body for themselves. I still don't really understand how Laura's parents didn't realize that it wasn't their daughter in that hospital bed all that time. Eventually, other visitors had doubts and when Whitney could communicate, she told them her name was Whitney.