The Cousins

I've never read a contemporary YA mystery-thriller before, and I was curious about this one. It definitely kept my attention, but I also don't feel eager to continue reading the genre. Still, it was a real page-turner. I'm definitely not the target audience for this book, though, so please take my review in that spirit. I listened to the audiobook and it was very well done, with several different narrators.

About halfway through, I had a guess about the ending which turned out to be totally wrong. So there were some good red herrings, or good to me, anyway. The ending was satisfying, although I didn't predict much about it. I always felt like there was enough detail to make things believable.

There was not a ton of depth to any of the three cousins, but that's okay, because it's more of a plot-driven book. There are also chapters from the PoV of Millie's mother as a teenager. Because of the nature of the book, these kids trying to figure out what happened when their parents were young, her chapters were the ones I was most interested in. So those were the most gripping, but she was the least interesting character of the four. Also, all the leads are hetero but there's an important gay side character who turns out to be pretty saintly, and I don't know, but his saintliness just hit me wrong.

Overall, my experience was somewhere between “okay” and “good.” Perfectly fine but nothing I'm excited about. I wanted something with a fast pace, and this book delivered on that front.

i mean...i liked it and i didn't??? it did follow a lot of typical thriller tropes as KMM's books often do and I didn't find this particularly thrilling but it was still good. it won't go down in history as the best thriller to ever grace the ya genre though and the big reveal was really underwhelming. but i have to say i do like KMM's humor a lot. and the characters were cute. it is definitely unconventional in its own way. i really didn't see the point of the allison pov & think that it took away from the story but if you like character focused thrillers (aubrey was my favorite), you can give this a try. don't really have a lot to say about this one other than that. 

3.5 stars.

The mystery was good, the characters not so much. While I liked the three cousins, their parents were horrible. And while we got the backstory for all three, I never felt connected or even remotely interested in any of them. All I kept thinking was how emotionless everyone was and how badly they treated their kids.

Everyone should just go to therapy and talk about the parent issues they have.

I feel like the first book ‘One of Us Lying' was the pinnacle. All the others keep falling a little short.

i mean...i liked it and i didn't??? it did follow a lot of typical thriller tropes as KMM's books often do and I didn't find this particularly thrilling but it was still good. it won't go down in history as the best thriller to ever grace the ya genre though and the big reveal was really underwhelming. but i have to say i do like KMM's humor a lot. and the characters were cute. it is definitely unconventional in its own way. i really didn't see the point of the allison pov & think that it took away from the story but if you like character focused thrillers (aubrey was my favorite), you can give this a try. don't really have a lot to say about this one other than that.??

No family is ever perfect, but there are some that seem more dysfunctional than others. Cue, the Story family. Some family secrets are fun, some are deadly. The Story cousins are about to find out what is going in their not-so-perfect family and discover that maybe they should have left the past alone. Each of their parents was disinherited with a single sentence from their mother, and while they are all curious as to why that was, it might have been better to walk away - even with all the money at stake. 


My Thoughts:
Wow, this was a book that was hard to put down! It is one that you are not going to want to start at night when you have to be up early the next morning. I am going to admit, I was stuck in the book until it was finished, and paid for it the next day. When you add in a family secret, a little murder, and a lot of what could go wrong, you are left with a book that is going to keep you enthralled until the end! 

As I was reading through this book, I had a few places where I felt that maybe teenagers would not react that way (but it has been a while since I was a teenager). I did enjoy the overall tone and storyline (no pun intended), as we worked through the mystery surrounding the Story family. This is one that you need to add to your MUST-READ LIST, and do it soon! This book will have you wishing for just a bit more at the end! 

Miley, Aubrey, and Jonah Story are cousins and have only met a couple if times when they were very young. They really don't know each other and haven't kept in touch because of their parents. And up until now have never met their grandmother until receiving a letter inviting them to work on her island. They are forced to go by their parents who are hoping to get back into the will, they had be removed from the will when they were younger.

Hoping to find out what happened between their parents and meet their grandmother, they head to the island.

Several good twists and turns. I really enjoyed this one.

3.5
“But she knew what the problem was with her mother's heart: it was broken.”

I wasn't expecting to enjoy this coz I wasn't a huge fan of one of us is lying, but this one was just amazing!!!
It wasn't suspenseful or anything just really interesting!!
The ending was so sad but at the same time weirdly happy too.
Loved the chapters which alternated between the past and present, loved the multiple povs.
Overall a really enjoyable read.