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A review by bartendm
The Mercy Rule by Perri Klass
3.0
This book is not really a novel with a connected story and narrative arc so much as a collection of short stories about one particular family. It's a family I found a hard time relating to, as they were upper class professionals living in a wealthy community near Boston with two children in an expensive private school. The main character is a pediatrician who works with foster care children because she was once one herself. She brings a passion to it, but a sort of disconnected passion, as she does to her family. I had a hard time relating to her and didn't really want to be in her hectic mind for most of the story.
I like that she also dealt with the issue of an autistic child and the negative effects labeling could have and how domestic abuse and neglect can happen in both the most wealthy and the poorest, but not much of the book focused on the poor. There were two stories within the book that I thought were masterful: "Unaccompanied Minors" and "About Me." The second is from the POV of a 5th grader and I felt like the author totally captured the worries, fears, misinterpretations and mixture of immaturity and maturity seen at that age. The book is worth getting just to read those stories.
I like that she also dealt with the issue of an autistic child and the negative effects labeling could have and how domestic abuse and neglect can happen in both the most wealthy and the poorest, but not much of the book focused on the poor. There were two stories within the book that I thought were masterful: "Unaccompanied Minors" and "About Me." The second is from the POV of a 5th grader and I felt like the author totally captured the worries, fears, misinterpretations and mixture of immaturity and maturity seen at that age. The book is worth getting just to read those stories.