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katiebella_reads 's review for:
House Rules
by Jodi Picoult
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
5⭐️
Summery
Jacob is an 18 year old boy with Asperger's syndrome. A form of autism. He is high functioning but still has problems relating to the world around him. Imagine if you could never put yourself in someone else's shoes? If you could never comprehend what another might be feeling? The idea of making friends is beyond your capabilities. This is Jacob.
/"Asperger's is a label to describe not the traits Jacob has but rather the ones he lost"/
Jacob is obsessed with criminal forensics. Blood splatter patterns, DNA analysis, and finger printing. His favorite show is CrimeBusters. He watches it every day even though it's reruns. He HAS to watch it every day. It's compulsive. Along with staging crime scenes for his mother to solve and to follow the police to crimes to try to help.
Due to his inability to understand the world around him, Jacob finds himself under arrest when his social skills teacher winds up missing then dead. Jacob is the number one suspect. He staged the crime and set up the clues for the cops to find in hopes that they would lead to the real culprit.
Emma is a single mother. It's not easy. Her husband left when Jacob's diagnosis became too much, leaving her to raise her two boys alone. She will do anything to help her son navigate the world around him and find exceptance from narrow-minded people.
When Emma finds her oldest son arrested and incarnated, she moves heaven and earth to try to make people understand that he needs help and compassion, not prison. That she would do anything to keep him home and under her care. But how far can a mother's /love reach?
"Even if he is a murderer, by design or by accident, he is still mine,"/
Theo has had a hard life. It's not easy being the younger brother of a sibling with autism. No one understands. Everyone just thinks his brother is strange, and by association, he must be as well. His whole life has been governed around Jacob's wants and needs. Keeping Jacob safe. Theo just wants a life of his own. A path of his own.
In the chaos that is his life, he began to enter the homes of families he wished he had. Taking small trinkets home with him. Until he enters the wrong one, leaving drastic results in the wake.
Not only is Theo now trying to cope with his own misadventures, but also the course altering repercussions of his brother.
Rich is the detective on the case of the dead social skills teacher, Jess Oglivy. Jacob hadn't even been a suspect at first. They didn't even know she was dead, just missing. But all clues keep leading back to this strange kid who doesn't make eye contact and speaks through movie quotes half the time.
Rich doesn't know anything about Asperger's or autism. What he learns he uses to coerce a confession.
Oliver just got his law degree. He has never handled a serious case. When Emma bursts into his office and drags him to the station to help her son, his whole world, snowballs. Thrust into the deep end, Oliver has to learn on his feet how to negotiate not just the courtroom but also how to control Jacob.
My Thoughts
This is a heat wrenchingly beautiful story. One that is filled with not just a mother's feirce love but also that of family and friends. It's about protecting your loved ones even against themselves. It flowed effortlessly, gripping and twisting my emotions till I didn't know myself, how I felt.
I personally have a sibling with Asperger's, and this book hit so close to home. There are a lot of differences between my family members and Jacob, but the similarities took my breath away. I also have a child on the nerodivergent scale. (Very low on it) The worries that Emma felt over her child fitting in and making friends was almost like looking in a mirror. ( Though I'm sure most parents can relate to that worry)
The characters were written so realistic that I felt as if I personally knew them. I wanted to befriend Theo and explain to him that it does get easier. I wanted to tell Rich it was ok not to understand mental illness but not ok to play on it to your own end. I wanted to hug Oliver and let him know he was doing a good job even when he wasn't sure what he was doing. I wanted to sit and actually listen with my whole body to what Jacob was trying to tell us. Lastly, I wanted to scream and Emma to breathe. Just breath.
Emma was my least favorite character and the one I could relate to the most. It was her realism that drove me crazy. The way she caters to all of Jacob's idiosyncrasies. (Making him all one color foods on certain days, one color clothes on certain days, i.e., ) she tried to make the world fit into Jacob's life instead of helping Jacob's fit into the world. I completely understood her reasoning, but as a mother with a child who isn't neurotypical, I spend a lot of time helping her to cope and adapt, so she CAN function without me. Emma never seems to do this. Jacob has a much harder time coping with what he goes through in this book due to the fact he has been catered to and babied. He has no clue how to function in society without all the quirks that he has been allowed to cater to and to exacerbate.
I LOVED this book. It's no wonder Jodi Picoult is as popular an author as she is. Her stories are both powerful and thought-provoking. They are books that hold up well in society. Tales that need to be told, from perspectives that don't often get shared. I will never stop reading her tales.
Summery
Jacob is an 18 year old boy with Asperger's syndrome. A form of autism. He is high functioning but still has problems relating to the world around him. Imagine if you could never put yourself in someone else's shoes? If you could never comprehend what another might be feeling? The idea of making friends is beyond your capabilities. This is Jacob.
/"Asperger's is a label to describe not the traits Jacob has but rather the ones he lost"/
Jacob is obsessed with criminal forensics. Blood splatter patterns, DNA analysis, and finger printing. His favorite show is CrimeBusters. He watches it every day even though it's reruns. He HAS to watch it every day. It's compulsive. Along with staging crime scenes for his mother to solve and to follow the police to crimes to try to help.
Due to his inability to understand the world around him, Jacob finds himself under arrest when his social skills teacher winds up missing then dead. Jacob is the number one suspect. He staged the crime and set up the clues for the cops to find in hopes that they would lead to the real culprit.
Emma is a single mother. It's not easy. Her husband left when Jacob's diagnosis became too much, leaving her to raise her two boys alone. She will do anything to help her son navigate the world around him and find exceptance from narrow-minded people.
When Emma finds her oldest son arrested and incarnated, she moves heaven and earth to try to make people understand that he needs help and compassion, not prison. That she would do anything to keep him home and under her care. But how far can a mother's /love reach?
"Even if he is a murderer, by design or by accident, he is still mine,"/
Theo has had a hard life. It's not easy being the younger brother of a sibling with autism. No one understands. Everyone just thinks his brother is strange, and by association, he must be as well. His whole life has been governed around Jacob's wants and needs. Keeping Jacob safe. Theo just wants a life of his own. A path of his own.
In the chaos that is his life, he began to enter the homes of families he wished he had. Taking small trinkets home with him. Until he enters the wrong one, leaving drastic results in the wake.
Not only is Theo now trying to cope with his own misadventures, but also the course altering repercussions of his brother.
Rich is the detective on the case of the dead social skills teacher, Jess Oglivy. Jacob hadn't even been a suspect at first. They didn't even know she was dead, just missing. But all clues keep leading back to this strange kid who doesn't make eye contact and speaks through movie quotes half the time.
Rich doesn't know anything about Asperger's or autism. What he learns he uses to coerce a confession.
Oliver just got his law degree. He has never handled a serious case. When Emma bursts into his office and drags him to the station to help her son, his whole world, snowballs. Thrust into the deep end, Oliver has to learn on his feet how to negotiate not just the courtroom but also how to control Jacob.
My Thoughts
This is a heat wrenchingly beautiful story. One that is filled with not just a mother's feirce love but also that of family and friends. It's about protecting your loved ones even against themselves. It flowed effortlessly, gripping and twisting my emotions till I didn't know myself, how I felt.
I personally have a sibling with Asperger's, and this book hit so close to home. There are a lot of differences between my family members and Jacob, but the similarities took my breath away. I also have a child on the nerodivergent scale. (Very low on it) The worries that Emma felt over her child fitting in and making friends was almost like looking in a mirror. ( Though I'm sure most parents can relate to that worry)
The characters were written so realistic that I felt as if I personally knew them. I wanted to befriend Theo and explain to him that it does get easier. I wanted to tell Rich it was ok not to understand mental illness but not ok to play on it to your own end. I wanted to hug Oliver and let him know he was doing a good job even when he wasn't sure what he was doing. I wanted to sit and actually listen with my whole body to what Jacob was trying to tell us. Lastly, I wanted to scream and Emma to breathe. Just breath.
Emma was my least favorite character and the one I could relate to the most. It was her realism that drove me crazy. The way she caters to all of Jacob's idiosyncrasies. (Making him all one color foods on certain days, one color clothes on certain days, i.e., ) she tried to make the world fit into Jacob's life instead of helping Jacob's fit into the world. I completely understood her reasoning, but as a mother with a child who isn't neurotypical, I spend a lot of time helping her to cope and adapt, so she CAN function without me. Emma never seems to do this. Jacob has a much harder time coping with what he goes through in this book due to the fact he has been catered to and babied. He has no clue how to function in society without all the quirks that he has been allowed to cater to and to exacerbate.
I LOVED this book. It's no wonder Jodi Picoult is as popular an author as she is. Her stories are both powerful and thought-provoking. They are books that hold up well in society. Tales that need to be told, from perspectives that don't often get shared. I will never stop reading her tales.