House Rules

Another Christmas has come and gone, and while a recap will be posted soon, for now I am going to fill the lull in posting with another book review.

Recently I finished reading House Rules by Jodi Picoult, which is the second book of hers that I have read despite her crazy popularity. If you don't know the author I'm talking about, she is the one that wrote My Sister's Keeper, which was then made into a movie with Cameron Diaz. While the movie pretty much sucked the book made me cry like a baby because of the surprisingly tragic ending.

As soon as I started reading House Rules I figured it was going to be pretty similar: Thinking one thing was going to happen at the end but then be completely blindsided with a surprise ending. Well, the ending I imagined from the beginning turned out to be the surprise ending, which was extremely disappointing. Up until the point where I realized the ending was going to be what I guessed from the beginning, I loved the book.

Here is a little synopsis. Jacob is the main character and is an 18 year old with Aspergers. Like many kids on the Autism spectrum he has a subject area that interests him to the point of obsession. In his case, that subject is forensic science. When a murder happens in the small town in which Jacob lives, the victim happens to be someone he knows and due to his inability to read social cues and other characteristics of Aspergers, he becomes the main suspect. The book goes through his trial, giving points of view from Jacob, his mother, brother, lawyer, and the main detective on the case, which makes reading the story very interesting.

At times, the book gets a little preachy with research and theories about Aspergers, but other than that (and the disappointing ending) the book is pretty good. I would recommend it to anyone who is looking to read a "junk-food" book, purely for entertainment. Just don't have too high of expectations, which is where I went wrong.

My rating: 3.8/5 stars.