House Rules

By Jodi Picoult

Hardcover, 532 pages

Published March 2nd 2010 by Atria Books

When your son can't look you in the eye...does that mean he's guilty?
Jacob Hunt is a teen with Asperger's syndrome. He's hopeless at reading social cues or expressing himself well to others, though he is brilliant in many ways. But he has a special focus on one subject - forensic analysis. A police scanner in his room clues him in to crime scenes, and he's always showing up and telling the cops what to do. And he's usually right.
But when Jacob's small hometown is rocked by a terrible murder, law enforcement comes to him. Jacob's behaviors are hallmark Asperger's, but they look a lot like guilt to the local police. Suddenly the Hunt family, who only want to fit in, are directly in the spotlight. For Jacob's mother, Emma, it's a brutal reminder of the intolerance and misunderstanding that always threaten her family. For his brother, Theo, it's another indication why nothing is normal because of Jacob.
And over this small family, the soul-searing question looms: Did Jacob commit murder?

This book was very special. I haven't read a mystery book since I was 13, and they hardly even count. Jacob was a very unpredictable character, you never knew what he would do until he did it. His mother had struggled his whole life with trying to give him everything that he desired, and to do that she had to give away her life too. 

this book was told from five people's point of view and it somehow worked. The book contained so many small details that one sidestep would have lead to a disaster with all the different minds. in the beginning I didn't see why we got to read from some peoples pov, like Oliver, but all these five peoples life's got connected at some point to the end. And talking about the end

What on earth was that!? are you kidding me, the book ended, like really ended with a effing CLIFFHANGER? there isn't even a follow up book!

I give this book a strong 3,5 / 5

I really liked her way of writing, and I liked hr characters, but she could have used less examples in her book, for an example "Jacob looked at me the way h used to look at me when he was twelve and we would sit under the cherry tree and he would look at me and say that cherry trees aren't really trees..." etc, u get the point (that wasn't a citation from the book)

and the big mystery in the book wasn't really a mystery to me when they revealed it at the end, I had the whole thing figured out 250 pages ago.

~stay smart, stay chic

xoxo Lihini