The Rules of Survival: Week of 11/17

**What did you think of what you read?**
Pages: 70-END

     This book was very...OK. Not bad, but not very good either. However. it leans more towards the good side. The Rules of Survival is a first person take on child abuse. I originally just wanted to read this book because it sounded interesting and well...it had a cool cover. After reading it, it turns out I've actually learned a lot about child abuse.

     I've always liked reading books where the narrator, in first person, has something that separates them from most other people (in the most not-offensive way possible). Books where the narrator suffers from depression are interesting because if it's not something you experience  reading the book allows you to get a better understanding of what depression feels like. Books told in first-person where the narrator has autism or Aspergers are really interesting to read because you get this totally different view on normal life. Those are the kinds of books I read to get an understanding of what something that I don't experience feels like. I wasn't expecting it, but I got that same experience with The Rules of Survival.

     I wasn't expecting to actually learn anything about child abuse. At first glance, it seems like such a simple topic. The parent or guardian or whoever it is is simply abusing their child. It's a bad thing but it seems so simple to understand. This book helped me understand that it's not very simple. It's especially not very simple for the children involved. The author did a great job of describing through Matthew what being in an abusive home feels like. She describes it as constantly living in fear because you never know when your abuser is suddenly going to explode on you. You never know what going to happen. You never know if today is the last day you'll live. When the author said that it feels like you're "living with fear all the time," it was a very sort of straightforward way to say what it feels like. My favorite way she described the feeling of living in that kind of home was when she described it as living in a constant play. She says,

"I was the director of our theater, arranging the stage set, telling you and Callie to take your places, prompting you to do or say this or that, whisper-feeding you lines of dialogue and bits of businness. "Don't forget to hug her!" "Go get her some Advil and a glass of water, fast." "Ask her if she'll help you with your homework later, she likes that."

And all the while I was directing, and acting, I also had to gauge the reaction of our audience of one--Nikki--and make adjustments to our play so it would suit her mood. Her picture of who she was. I knew every move, every motion in every possible scenario, and all the plays melted together onto an endless onstage nightmare, all  of them beginning with the sound of the downstairs door slamming open and her high heels clacking on the stairs. "

     The trio of siblings in this story, I learned, are one of the lucky families. In the end, they end up leaving their abusive mother and travel into the safe hands of other guardians without being separated. The narrator tells us how many siblings are separated when they're saved, so he was really grateful he and his siblings were able to stick together. With a whole trio of kids being abused by their mother, I wondered why they never told anyone about it. The narrator eventually tells us that he wanted help--he wanted to get his siblings out of there. He was worried that no one would believe them, people would make matters worse, or he and his siblings would be split up into foster care. This immediately reminded me of why kids don't want to tell adults that they're being bullied. However, in child abuse cases, the person that has been around raising the child is the one hurting them.

     Overall, I think I would recommend this book to someone who doesn't know much about child abuse. If you don't know much (or anything), then this book seriously teaches you. However, I'd give it a 7/10. Not bad, but not too great. There were somethings that could be improved in the book, I think. It's not like the book is unreadable or anything but it doesn't really make you not want to put the book down. There are books that you simple cannot put down because they're that great. This is not one of those books. It's an OK book with a terrible little twist near the end but twists and turns doesn't make a good book. It helps, but it doesn't automatically make a book memorable. The Rules of Survival was good, but it's definitely not one of my top books.