House Rules

After being thoroughly impressed by Jodi Picoult's Nineteen Minutes, I decided to read House Rules as well and enjoyed it just as much.

House Rules stars an eighteen year old autistic boy named Jacob, who is struggling to make his way through a world of people who do not think like him nor understand how to interact with him. As typical of Picoult's books, along with Jacob she explores the points of views of his mother, his fifteen year old brother, a police officer, and Jacob's lawyer.

The plot of House Rules starts to kick up when Jacob's social skills teacher, Jess, is found dead in her dorm room. Because of the fact that the last person noted to have seen her was Jacob, Jacob gets called into court and accused for the murder of Jess.

What I found most unique about this book was that because of Jacob's aspbergers syndrome, he cannot relate to others socially or emotionally, has to keep to a strict routine to stay sane, and will take everything said to him extremely literally. For example, if someone were to tell Jacob to "take a seat", he would assume that they meant for him to pick up a chair and take it with him. This creates difficulties for him and his family in the legal system, which comes into play throughout the book.

I also really enjoyed Jodi Picoult's attention to detail. You can tell that she obviously did a lot of research to write this book, whether it was about the legal system, autism, and how autism affects loved ones who aren't diagnosed. All of her background research really made the story more authentic and made you believe in it, and of course her realistic and unique characters added to it as well.

Again, Jodi Picoult's books are more challenging to read than teen novels due to the subject matter and length of her stories, however I would recommend this book to anyone who is up to the challenge.