Customer Reviews

Twins

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I think that this book is great. The main character is going through the realization that she was deceived by everyone she loves. All the while, cooney makes her misfortunes into a thriller. An autor who can twist a sory into whatever she feels like making it is truly an author. It's a really great book.

This book is about twins Madrigal and Mary Lee. Mary Lee is being sent away to boarding school and she feels betrayed, she feels like her parents love her sister more, and Magrigal says that it is a good idea that she leaves, like she doesnt care what happens to her. At boarding school, Mary Lee is a misfit, she has no friends and everyone thinks she is crazy when she claims she has a twin, they think she is making it up to seem cool. Mary Lee writes letters to Madrigal and Madrigal doesnt really say much to her, she only mentions that she has a boyfriend, Jon Pear. Then Madrigal comes to visit on their winter break and everyone at Mary Lee's boarding school likes her more than they like Mary Lee. They all go skiing and nobody really pays attention to Mary Lee because she has such a boring personality compared to Madrigal and even her ski suit is worse than hers. Madrigal asks Mary Lee to switch suits and pretend to be eachother. Mary Lee says ok, and they do it. Then, Madrigal goes up in the ski lift, all by herself because everyone thinks she is Mary Lee, and her lift chair breaks off and she dies. Everyone thinks that it was Mary Lee though, and Mary Lee thinks that since Madrigal is more popular, why not pretend to be her. After they pack up all of her things and she goes back home and starts school, she realizes what people really thought of Madrigal, and what Jon Pear is really like. Read this book cuz it is quite exciting.

Mary Lee and Madrigal are twins who do every thing together until there parents decide they are too alike and need time apart. Mary Lee is sent to boarding school where she is miserable, while Madrigal stays at home where she becomes popular. Mary Lee wishes she could be Madrigal. Strangely she gets her wish and the plot unfolds from there.

Twins is a must read book! It's thrilling from beginning to end. It's about two teenage girls who happen to be identical twins! They're always together which isn't such a great thing. Madrill becomes jealous of her sister Mary Lee and jealously causes her to become evil. Mary Lee knows nothing about Madrill's evil ways and wishes to be her sister. When her wish came true, Mary Lee finds it was a huge mistake. The author is great at making her characters realistic. Their feelings and actions are the same as a real person would have. For example, the way they dealt with their problems is exactly the same as I would have. The suspense was great! I could not put this book down, I was too anxious to find out what was going to happen. It also had a great hook. I just had to read on to find out what this book was about. I recommend everyone should read this book. It is so detailed that I felt like I was there. You really should read it!

I am sorry, but this book is stupid. Stupid and implausible. Stupid. Stupid, STUPID! It is the cliche of twins who are obverse sides of each other -- one good, one evil. Madrigal, the evil twin naturally wants to dispose of Mary-Lee, the goody-goody. She convinces their naive parents into sending Mary-Lee to boarding school, where the girl is miserable and wants to come home. Interestingly, Mary-Lee has no idea of how evil Madrigal is until after Madrigal dies in a skiing accident when she [Madrigal] comes to visit the boarding school. Mary-Lee was relegated to the background while everybody flocked to her evil sister. Madrigal, in a seeming change of heart (if she had one) suggested that she and her twin switch snow suits when the group goes on a ski trip. Madrigal dies, and naturally everyone thinks it is Mary-Lee who is dead. The girl's parents enter into the charade only to admit that they knew Madrigal died all along. They admitted that they wanted to protect Mary-Lee and that sending her away was to keep Madrigal from harming her. Mary-Lee overheard them saying in an earlier chapter that they regretted having twins and that if one had to die, "better it be this one," meaning Madrigal. Don't worry folks -- it all gets sorted out in the end. There is no way for those foolish parents to justify pretending that they thought Mary-Lee was the dead twin. That charade was not only stupid and unbelievable, it was insulting to the readers' inteligence. Madrigal's evil boy friend, Jon Pear is a very unbelievable character - he eats Mary-Lee's tears, he swears to be her twin in evil and the kids at the high school they attend all shy away from him. Jon Pear is a completely laughable, ludicrous charcter that adds nothing to this story. It is like adding water to the soup - you have more to consume, but are really taking in less. He does nothing to contribute to this stupid story. Mary-Lee is laughably clueless to a certain extent.

Just for a little background info on me, I have a BA in English as well as psychology. I worked as a children's library assistant for my first four years out of college. I remember enjoying some of Cooney's books when I was in middle school. I read this one as an adult, and really enjoyed it. The plot was startingly orignal, in my opinion. I really felt for Mary Lee, and was really invested in what happened to her. Ok, Shakespeare it's not, but if you want to have a fast, thrilling read, try picking it up. If you're not into by chapter 3, just go ahead and put it away.

I have read several of Caroline B. Cooney's books before and always thought they were quite good. However, this one was very disappointing. The outcome is too easily figured out; the plot is unbelievable; you feel no sympathy towards the characters. If you want a good book, don't go for this one.

I really loved Caroline B. Cooney's other books, but this one was incredibly awful. The plot was totally implausible: if this girl was so close to her twin, how could she not know the truth about her? It's repetitive, going on and on about how much Mary Lee misses Madrigal, and Mary Lee's feelings about John Pear, Madrigal's boyfriend. And some of the lines are really overdone. For example: "John Pear's laugh flipped in wild peals like a Frisbee." I would definitely recommend reading the other books she's written, but not this one.

This was a trashy but entertaining read right up to the point where you find out that the "evil" thing Jon Pear and Madrigal have been doing is dropping kids off in the inner city, locking the car doors, and leaving them to ...

... have rats crawl on them.

Yeah. That's it. Ooh, scary! With the buildup to that scene, I was expecting something more on the level of a gang rape. At the very least, some threats and harassment by gang members. Maybe a mugging. Something, you know, threatening. I have to wonder if she had something more realistic originally, and the publisher made her take it out.

Ummm...wow
This is really a lot different then Cooney's other books. If you've read Hush Little Baby, Emergency Room, Burning Up there is just no way they would ever compare. This book is good I'm not saying I didnt like it. I'm actually really impressed that she can write more than one kind of book!