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Elexis Gahn

Mrs. Cramer

College Comp I

23 November 2021

The Mystery that Changed Their Lives for Good: The Alleged Life of Three Cousins

Grandmother

Karen McManus’s The Cousins throw the readers into a mystery where they question

each character, however, it teaches them to look out for others even if they are not your family.

All three of the main characters within the book have a secret to hide from each other, they learn

to overcome their distrust for each other while also seeking the truth of their estranged

grandmother who mysteriously invited them to her island. As the character are thrown around

into mysteries they all learn to appreciate one another and what they have taken advantage of

before.

Within the first hundred pages, Milly, one of the three cousins, discovers that Jonah her

“cousin” is a random stranger that her real cousin has hired to take his place. On page 85, “Milly

waves my driver’s license again, looking up at me from under those mile-long lashes. ‘Gladly.

Just as soon as you tell me who the hell you are, Jonah North, and why you’re pretending to be

my cousin.” In this scene, Milly had suspicions that the Jonah with them on the island was not

her real cousin. When she stole his driver's license, her suspicions were confirmed. The imposter

went on to explain that the real Jonah, JT, paid Jonah North to take his place on the island so he

could go to a space camp over the summer.

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Before Milly, Aubrey, and Jonah were all invited to the island they had had no contact

with their grandmother ever or with each other for nine years. However, on the island they meet

a family member that plays a major part in why they were invited in the first place. On page 146

it is quoted, “I owe you an apology, too. All of you. You asked me, in Dunes, if I had brought

you here. Truth is, I did.” After hearing the local band at a bar playing a familiar song that the

cousins heard being sung in an older home video of their parents, they became extra aware of the

lead singer. They then followed and swarmed him until he revealed who he was. The mysterious

man was their long-lost uncle. The whole group went back to Uncle Archers' hideout to discuss

why he was there. Uncle Archer then tells the cousins that he was the one who sent out the letter

inviting them to the island so they could try to get their estranged grandmother to try to welcome

her children and grandchildren back into her life. After learning that piece of information,

everything begins to make sense for Milly, Aubrey, and Jonah, as to why their grandmother and

everyone around her was surprised to see them and had no place for them right in the beginning

or going straight on a business trip far away to escape from the confrontation.

Later, within the book, after the drastic Summer Gala, only Aubrey was invited to visit

her grandmother before the summer ended. When she was there, she noticed something odd

about her grandmother's hand when she took off her gloves. The book states on page 273, “Bare

of gloves for once, wrinkled and age-spotted, but otherwise unblemished.” All the story family

has a red birthmark on their hand, when Aubrey saw her grandmothers' hands without the gloves

there was no birthmark, this discovery also went against a picture of her grandmother she saw

earlier in a local store, proudly displaying her birthmark. From what she heard about her

grandmother beforehand, she loved her birthmark and proudly displayed it, she would not want
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to get it removed. After putting what Aubrey has heard and finally saw she concluded that the

women in her father's childhood home was not her grandmother.

Learning her “grandmother” was an imposter to her whole family; more suspicions arise

about the conspiracy of the imposter woman. When Aubrey was trapped in a room with her

“grandmother,” the woman revealed who she really was. The book stated, on page 290, “Your

grandmother died of natural causes twenty-four years ago. I found her here.’(Imposter)... ‘You’re

Theresa,’(Aubrey)... ‘I took everything I could from Adam, and for all these years, it’s never felt

like enough. Maybe taking his only child would be.’ … ‘After all, he took mine.’ (Thersea)”

Aubrey's father, Adam Story, had killed Theresas son when he was eight-teen for getting his

sister pregnant and abandoning her and the unborn baby. Thersea's plan was to take over the

story family and waste all the money so she could leave all the story children wondering why

their mother disinherited them and left them with nothing.

Karen McManus’s The Cousins throws the readers into a mystery where they question

each character. Milly, Aubrey, and Jonah all go through a crazy mystery where they must take

chances in trusting one another to receive the truth. Even if they all are not blood related the trio

looks out for each other and makes sure the other is safe. The reader takes away that one should

trust their gut and trust the people around you to be able to find out the truth about a mystery in

your life.
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Work Citated

McManus, Karen M. The Cousins. New York: Delacorte Press, 2020.