HOUSE
RULES
What is it like to be a teenager with Asperger’s Syndrome? In her brilliant new novel, HOUSE RULES, Jodi Picoult brings us into the world of Jacob Hunt, an eighteen-year-old with this high-functioning form of autism. He’s extremely verbal and smart with a steel-trap mind for facts and figures. And his specialty? He can accurately analyze a crime scene in lightning speed and tests himself with each new episode of the television program, “Crime Busters.” What he can’t do is keep eye contact, make friends, read between the lines, or say “I love you.” In Jacob’s world everything is planned out and closely monitored. He cannot handle any variations from the routine, and his mother, Emma, rarely strays from it. He also absolutely will not break a rule and wishes everyone else would follow the rules as well as he does. Rules, he says, are what keep him sane. However, when Jacob’s social skills tutor, Jess, a co-ed grad student, is found dead, Jacob is arrested for her murder and his precisely-ordered world spins wildly out of control. Told through multiple viewpoints, including Emma, Jacob’s brother, the local detective, the young lawyer who takes on Jacob’s case, and, of course, through Jacob’s unique voice, HOUSE RULES is a riveting look at a kid who cannot fit in no matter how hard he tries. In today’s world, where 1 out of every 100 children is diagnosed on the autism spectrum, HOUSE RULES is a glimpse inside an isolated world increasingly seen, yet only marginally understood. Vivid, well-researched and emotionally powerful, the perspectives of these characters and the pitch-perfect voice of Asperger’s will stay with you long after you’ve finished reading. |
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