8 /10 1 Votes8
Publisher Atria Media type Print (hardcover) ISBN 978-0-7432-9643-4 Country United States of America | 4/5 Goodreads Publication date March 2, 2010 Pages 532 pp Originally published 2 March 2010 Original language English Genres Fiction, Novel | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Nominations Goodreads Choice Awards Best Fiction, Goodreads Choice Awards Favorite Book Similar Jodi Picoult books, Asperger syndrome books, Novels |
House Rules is a story by Jodi Picoult about a boy with Asperger's syndrome living in Townsend, Vermont who is accused of murder. The novel shows the struggle between the boy and his family, the law, and his disability.
Contents
Plot
Jacob Hunt is eighteen years old, lives with his mother Emma and brother Theo, and has Asperger's syndrome, then considered a form of high-functioning autism. Jacob lives by a structured schedule and feels comfortable only when all of his daily activities are planned; Emma indulges him by bending her and Theo's lives around his needs. Jacob is obsessed with forensic analysis to the point of compulsion. His need to engage in structured, single-minded activities, as well as his obsession with detail, often frustrates his mother and infuriates his brother. The novel opens with Jacob setting up a crime scene (in which he is the victim) for his mother to solve. Jacob is later accused of murdering his tutor Jess Ogilvy. Eventually it is revealed that Theo snuck into a house Jess was housesitting at and startled her, causing her to accidentally hit her head on the sink and die. When Jacob showed up for tutoring, he staged a crime scene to make it look like Jess's boyfriend Mark Maguire had committed the murder and then Mark had tried to make it look like a kidnapping. Jacob states that he did this to take care of his brother, in accordance with a "house rule" set down by Emma, and that he would do it again.
Characters
Murders discussed
The novel contains short discussions of murder(s) committed by Ted Bundy, Richard Crafts, Christopher Hightower, Darryl Littlejohn, Jeffrey MacDonald. Stella Nickell, Dorothea Puente, Dennis Rader, Gary Ridgway, and Bill Sybers.