The Goosebumps Series 2000 book with evil clones.
Monty Adams is staying with his scientist uncle Leo for a year. He doesn't mind because he gets to spend time with his cousin Nan, who he gets along with very well. However, Leo is being rather secretive. Soon weird things start happening, and Monty gets blamed even though he was not there for them. Soon he finds out there is someone who looks an awful lot like him running him. Monty is about to learn some interesting family secrets...
This book contains examples of
- Break Them by Talking: How Monty fools the clones. He convinces them that they can get new identities, which causes them to start fighting each other, and Monty manages to escape through the chaos.
- Covers Always Lie: The cover depicts Monty as having brown hair, while in the book he has red hair.
- Clashing Cousins: Averted with Monty and Nan, who unlike most cousins in the series, actually get along very well. The reveal that they are actually twins makes it an aversion of Sibling Rivalry.
- Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: The book has the protagonist finding out his cousin is actually his sister and the reason she was separated from Monty was because Mom had no way to support two kids.
- Distinguishing Mark: The clones have a blue dot on them to tell them apart from the real thing. Then they use a device to mark Monty with it too, to fool others into thinking he's one of them.
- Embarrassing First Name: Monty isn't happy about his mother naming him "Montgomery".
- Evil Twin: Technically, they are evil clones but Monty is lead to believe the first one he sees is his actual twin.
- Family Relationship Switcheroo: Monty thinks Nan is his cousin. He eventually finds out that she's actually his younger twin sister.
- For Science!: Uncle Leo actually begins his Motive Rant with the proclamation "I am a scientist!"
- Plot Allergy: Monty is allergic to peanuts, as first demonstrated when a donut fried in peanut oil makes him sick. This is later used as the way to figure out which Monty is the real one. Except it doesn't work, because the clone used baked donuts instead of fried ones, and faked getting sick, fooling Nan into thinking he was the real Monty.
- Puppy Love: Monty has a thing for a girl named Ashley. It doesn't work out though, due to getting blamed for trashing the art room.
- "Ray of Hope" Ending: Nan discovers the Monty she picked is really one of the evil clones, and he reveals how he carefully set it up so Nan and her father would believe he was the real Monty. The Monty clone fails to realize there's nothing stopping Nan or her father from now rescuing the real Monty since the clone stupidly revealed the truth.
- Something Only They Would Say: Evil!Monty convinces Nan he is the real one by bringing up a story they shared together in an earlier scene.
- Switching P.O.V.: The last couple of chapters are from the perspective of Nan, rather than Monty. This was likely done to hide the twist of who is the real Monty.
- Title Drop: Happens at the end of the book. Upon realizing that Nan is now living with the evil clone, she asks how he could let the real Monty be sent away. The clone responds with, "I'm your evil twin!"
