Review Detail

Twintuition: Double Dare

Middle Grade Fiction 243

Twin Powers: Activate!

June 13, 2017 (Updated: June 04, 2026)

Overall rating

4.0

Plot

4.0

Characters

N/A

Writing Style

N/A

Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)

N/A

Cassie and Caitlyn are still getting used to having magical powers, and it seems like they may be splitting the gift of reading other's thoughts-- one sees mainly happy thoughts while the other sees mainly sad ones. When their father's mother, Verity Lockwood, arrives from England to meet with the girls, their mother isn't very happy. Did the magic have something to do with their father's death? Since their mother is trying so hard to keep them from their grandmother, they only learn the family secrets and information about their burgeoning powers a bit at a time. They also have to deal with their friends at school, who are involved in a Truth of Dare craze. When the girls have a vision that one of their friends is going to be badly injured, will they be able to stop it from happening?

Good Points

Magical realism is in great demand-- who doesn't want to have some sort of magical power? The girls are shown dealing with the problems that their new found skills are causing in a constructive and realistic way.

While I have a little bit of a hard time telling the twins apart, the supporting characters are tremendously appealing. The British grandmother is caring and yet enigmatic, and the twins no-nonsense police woman mother is great. There's a lot more to the family story, and I'm curious to see if there will be more about this, as well as the girls' father, in further books.

Books about twins are always popular (I really want to go reread DuJardin's Pam and Penny Howard series right now!), and these books are appealing to reluctant older readers who want shorter, easier books that still address the intricacies of middle school relationship dramas. The covers of these are a bit reminiscent of Devillers and Roy's Trading Faces and Payton's It Takes Two series, which have been very popular with my students.