Reviewed by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite

The Evil Twin's Diary is a political, finance and visionary novella written by Brenda S. Gibbs. Robin Jones had envisioned a restful Sunday that would recharge her for the upcoming work week. She wasn't all that thrilled with her current job, but she did like the fact that she was able to pay down the student loans she had taken out, cover her expenses and even put a little bit of savings away. While she luxuriated in a leisurely wake-up session, she felt a drop of cold water hit her nose and begin to run towards her eye. Looking up, she saw a circular brown stain, and ruefully realized that she would have home maintenance to do instead of relaxing before work on Monday. She climbed up the pull-down stairs to the attic and saw that, indeed, she had a major leak that would require immediate attention. But how to find a roofer on a Sunday?

She called scores of them, until she finally found one who cheerfully promised to be right there. He did get there quickly and proceeded to chuckle and comment over the state of her roof. It would need total replacement, and, due to the conditions, she would have to decide then and there whether to hire him or not. And it would cost her ten thousand dollars -- paid in advance. When they finally agreed on simply fixing the roof, he spent about fifteen minutes up there and drove off with the agreed-upon thousand dollars. She was, at least, relieved to know the leaking had been stopped. As she cleaned up the water damage in the attic, she noticed a rolled up paper secreted above her. Looking further, she noticed more of them. Each was hand-written in an elegant script, and, put together, formed a most unusual diary.

Brenda S. Gibbs' political, business and visionary novella, The Evil Twin's Diary, takes the reader on an educational adventure hosted by the Evil Twin, an abstract opposed to the Invisible Hand concept of the Free Market. Underlying the diary is the story of Robin Jones, whose Sunday begins with an unscrupulous roofer attempting to take advantage of her and ends with her wondering if she'll even have a job to go to on Monday morning. Along with Robin, I learned a lot more about the free market, including how it should function versus how it's often corrupted, than many students learn in business school. Robin's plight, when she and the other employees in the company are left jobless and without compensation, has been an ongoing and all too familiar one for many workers in this country. Seeing how Robin and the other former employees gather together into a support structure and what they are able to achieve thereby is an uplifting and exciting vision of what can be done in such a situation. The Evil Twin's Diary is highly recommended.