Three Black Swans

Three Black Swans
By Caroline B. Cooney
Delacorte Press, 2010. 276 pgs. Young Adult

Disturbed by something she hears on talk radio, Missy plans a hoax for school where she and her cousin, Claire, reveal themselves to be twin sisters long ago separated. The hoax scares Claire, but she goes along with it until she realizes the reason she’s scared is because she believes it might be true. Missy also believes she and Claire are truly sisters, but doesn’t understand how their parents could have kept this from them. Genevieve sees the uploaded video twenty miles away in Manhattan and realizes Missy and Claire are not twins, but triplets and she is the third sister. Secrets and relationships start to unravel as the girls discover the truth.

Cooney is hit or miss for me these days. This one was a miss. Parts of it were interesting and I did want to know how this happened. But parts of the book didn’t ring true. Also, Cooney’s feel for teenagers nowadays and how they act, speak, and such, seems to be off, which makes the book more unbelievable.

MN