House Rules

House Rules by Jodi Picoult


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I kept finding myself wishing someone was reading this along with me because I kept wanting to talk about it, so at least that part of it was good. But the thing I kept wanting to talk about was how badly she wrote the characters. I just kept thinking the mom was the typical martyr, the troubled neglected son was predictable, and the son with Asperger's completely stereotypical when in fact there is nothing stereotypical about AS. Granted, I'm no expert on it, as my only experience with it is that I have taught a handful of kids with it. One thing I do know is that no one child with AS is alike just like any other "normal" person is not.

I didn't like how when the AS character was narrating, they said things that an AS person would never say. This was probably done because I have tried to read a memoir by an autistic author and it was really boring.

I also didn't like how the storyline seemed so contrived just to play on the popularity of crime shows like CSI.

With all this complaining, I did get some pleasure out of it and I did at least finish it, so...if you like Picoult, you'll probably like something about it.

Oh yeah, I also didn't like the ending. Too nice and neat.

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