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3.91 AVERAGE
3.91 AVERAGE
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Good book but took off a star because of the anti-vaccine stuff. Major eye roll.
challenging
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
Liked that the book was written from several different perspectives and helped educate people about Asperger's. Didn't like that the "mystery" of who murdered the tutor was evident and able to be solved by the reader halfway through the book. The ending also sucked - seemed like she was rushing to finish the book.
HOUSE RULES is only the second novel I have read by Jodi Picoult, and I found it a more interesting story than HANDLE WITH CARE. This is probably due to the fact that there is a mystery with a twist involved, which made it a much faster read for me.
Jacob is an 18-year-old with Asperger’s, and a love of crime scenes. When his tutor is found dead, Jacob becomes one of the suspects, and the readers are led on a who-done-it that goes against the norm. In addition to a good mystery, readers get an education about Asperger’s, a form of autism. Picoult has done impeccable research yet again, and she tears at our heartstrings with an impossible situation that seems to be insurmountable.
If you’ve never read Picoult before, this is the one to read.
Jacob is an 18-year-old with Asperger’s, and a love of crime scenes. When his tutor is found dead, Jacob becomes one of the suspects, and the readers are led on a who-done-it that goes against the norm. In addition to a good mystery, readers get an education about Asperger’s, a form of autism. Picoult has done impeccable research yet again, and she tears at our heartstrings with an impossible situation that seems to be insurmountable.
If you’ve never read Picoult before, this is the one to read.
I'm between 3 and 4 stars for this book but as once again Jodi Picoult irrates me how she ends the story.
I think she shows how Asperger's affects not only the person but their entire family and society at large. In some ways it reminded me of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and you can tell she spent a lot of time researching Asperger.
I think she shows how Asperger's affects not only the person but their entire family and society at large. In some ways it reminded me of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and you can tell she spent a lot of time researching Asperger.
I usually enjoy Picoult's novels very much, but I got impatient with the characters in this one and could see the ending coming barely a third of the way into the book.
Picoult is usually very good at allowing her characters to be falliable but not stupid, but again and again and again characters who should know better fail to ask Jacob the key question: "Did you kill ___?" Instead they ask all kinds of other questions without ever being specific -- despite the fact that we are told again and again and again Jacob is unable to follow social cues, be intuitive, or be anything other than literal. The whole book could have erased if someone had simply said to him, "Tell me exactly what you did from the moment you arrived at the house." Case closed.
Picoult is usually very good at allowing her characters to be falliable but not stupid, but again and again and again characters who should know better fail to ask Jacob the key question: "Did you kill ___?" Instead they ask all kinds of other questions without ever being specific -- despite the fact that we are told again and again and again Jacob is unable to follow social cues, be intuitive, or be anything other than literal. The whole book could have erased if someone had simply said to him, "Tell me exactly what you did from the moment you arrived at the house." Case closed.
I didn't hate My Sister's Keeper. That was the first Jodi Picoult novel I read, which probably isn't all that surprising considering how big a splash that one was.
So, yeah. I didn't hate it. Didn't love it either. And it certainly didn't inspire me to pick up anything else by this author. But, as I work through my "book bingo"* I hit 'read a book over 500 pages' and I basically looked around the used bookstore until I found a book that sounded somewhat interesting that was over 500 pages.
And this is what I got.
And let's be honest here, the formula of this book is pretty dang close to My Sister's Keeper. Medical issues, protective parent, cutesy romance, changing perspectives, ignored sibling.... Yeah. And the twist at the end wasn't particularly surprising.
And, to be honest, what was most disappointing in this book was that when I looked to read the reviews, so many people are saying that this wasn't a good representation of autism.
* Feel free to google it, but basically it's a bingo board where, in each of the squares, there is a description of a book. And you have to read a book that fits into that description. And then you can mark it off. I'm going for black out.
So, yeah. I didn't hate it. Didn't love it either. And it certainly didn't inspire me to pick up anything else by this author. But, as I work through my "book bingo"* I hit 'read a book over 500 pages' and I basically looked around the used bookstore until I found a book that sounded somewhat interesting that was over 500 pages.
And this is what I got.
And let's be honest here, the formula of this book is pretty dang close to My Sister's Keeper. Medical issues, protective parent, cutesy romance, changing perspectives, ignored sibling.... Yeah. And the twist at the end wasn't particularly surprising.
And, to be honest, what was most disappointing in this book was that when I looked to read the reviews, so many people are saying that this wasn't a good representation of autism.
* Feel free to google it, but basically it's a bingo board where, in each of the squares, there is a description of a book. And you have to read a book that fits into that description. And then you can mark it off. I'm going for black out.
Jodi Picoult novels are my go tos when I don't have anything that's waiting for me on my hold list at the library. They're always entertaining and good for my bus ride home at the end of the day at work because they don't make me think too hard. I enjoyed this one as well and felt that I learned a lot about Autism while reading it. My one complaint is that I'm kind of over her device of holding out a key piece of the story until the last two chapters of the book. You know something big is coming, you just don't know what it is. After a while, that type of story-telling device gets tired.