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A review by cryrider
Rodrick Rules by Jeff Kinney
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
4.75
another day, another over-analytical post of a children's book.
my idea that some of greg heffley’s behavior can be attributed to the abuse he suffers from rodrick is constantly being affirmed in this volume. i mean greg explicitly says that he was excited to get a younger brother (manny) because he could finally have someone to pick on the way rodrick has been picking on him.
he wants power over someone because he has lost all agency within his relationship to his older brother. so he goes on to use manny and rowley (and any other naive/largely innocent individual) as a means to “reclaim” that power he’s lost. he wants others to feel the same pain that he does.
but as i noted in my volume 1 review, greg doesn’t even KNOW he’s being a little shit half the time, at least not towards rowley. when it comes to rowley, it seems that he genuinely believes he’s not doing anything wrong. maybe he thinks that this is what friendship is supposed to look like, one person having dominance over the other, and that’s just normal to him. i'm sure that this is the case, given that he also calls Chirag (a kid from his school) a friend but then proceeds to mock him with the whole class. his reasoning for this was that chirag was one of the only viable options for bullying at the school since greg can only pick on people smaller than him. this is pretty much the same thing he opines about his dynamic with rodrick and manny.
anyways, very fun book.
my idea that some of greg heffley’s behavior can be attributed to the abuse he suffers from rodrick is constantly being affirmed in this volume. i mean greg explicitly says that he was excited to get a younger brother (manny) because he could finally have someone to pick on the way rodrick has been picking on him.
he wants power over someone because he has lost all agency within his relationship to his older brother. so he goes on to use manny and rowley (and any other naive/largely innocent individual) as a means to “reclaim” that power he’s lost. he wants others to feel the same pain that he does.
but as i noted in my volume 1 review, greg doesn’t even KNOW he’s being a little shit half the time, at least not towards rowley. when it comes to rowley, it seems that he genuinely believes he’s not doing anything wrong. maybe he thinks that this is what friendship is supposed to look like, one person having dominance over the other, and that’s just normal to him. i'm sure that this is the case, given that he also calls Chirag (a kid from his school) a friend but then proceeds to mock him with the whole class. his reasoning for this was that chirag was one of the only viable options for bullying at the school since greg can only pick on people smaller than him. this is pretty much the same thing he opines about his dynamic with rodrick and manny.
anyways, very fun book.