Book: Rules

Author: Cynthia Lord

Genre: Realistic fiction 

Reviewer: Enora

Catherine, a twelve year old girl, dreams of having a normal life which is hard when you have a brother with autism and parents who only seem to think about his disability. Because of this she has trouble finding friends, until she meets Jason, a boy with a disability like her brother, and her new next door neighbor Kristi.

David has  autism which makes it difficult for  him to express himself or interpret things properly. Catherine gives him rules like “ Chew with your mouth closed”  or guidelines like “ sometimes people laugh when they like you but sometimes they laugh to hurt you.” This helps David a lot to express himself but it also limits him, one of their rules is that he can "borrow words” from one of his books and this means he doesn't have a lot to go with and you can’t really understand him properly if you hadn’t read the same book.  

Throughout the story Catherine is reluctant to be friends with Jason because she is scared she won’t understand him and they might not be able to communicate properly with one another which leads to them not knowing what to do together. Because of this thought she is scared that becoming Jason’s friend might embarrass him. Through this friendship she also grows to realise that her brother won’t wake up one day and be cured and that was ok, acceptance is a major theme in “Rules” and these are some character developments that help Catherine progress and change her perspective of what a normal life was like and except hers. 

There is the friendship between Jason and Catherin which started out as a small thing because they only saw each other when David went OT but then got stronger, next there is the friendship between Catherine and Melissa which was a long term friendship but it lasted even when they were separated. This suggests that to make a true friendship you need a friend who you can talk to and support you even from far away and most importantly who doesn't care if you are physically disabled or mentally but just accepts you as who you are or who your family is. 

I liked this novel because even though Catherine didn't enjoy teaching her brother rules, babysitting him and sometimes even being embarrassed by him she still looked after him and cared about him even though because of this she had problems socialising. My favourite character is Kristie because she is nice with David( Catherine’s brother) and Catherine and manages to look through David’s disability unlike her friend Rayan.

I would recommend this book to others because it can help you understand how hard it is to have a disability and for the people who look after you, it also helps us to notice that people with disabilities are still people and have emotions and that’s how you should treat them, like everyone else.

It’s a very interesting book and I am giving it a 7 out of 10