House Rules

The Scunthorpe page turners book group discussed this book in conjunction with the reading agency's "Author Anonymous" giveaway.
The novel concerns the effect of Asperger's syndrome not only on the individual concerned but the ripple effect spreading from the immediate family, to several connected individuals.
This is achieved via a series of 5 narrators -Each chapter is headed by a narrators name -these 5 individuals see events from their own first person perspective and include
1.The Mother (Emma) 2.The Brother (Theo) 3. A Cop (Rich)
4. A Lawyer (Oliver) 5. The Asperger's sufferer (Jacob)
This series of first person narratives shows several interpretations of events and It allows the author to reveal the inner thoughts of those people who interact with Jacob .
The reader is invited to emotionally connect to the Sacrifices of his mother, the resentment of his brother, the irritation and partial understanding of the police officer, the pragmatic acceptance and empathy shown by the lawyer, and finally the forthright, literal and demanding nature of Jacob .
Who is by turns super intelligent, hyper, needy, inadvertently funny and sad.
The Maguffin of the novel is the investigation of the tragic death of Jacob’s tutor Jess -
This serves two purposes - the first is to provide pace and a driven plotline. The second is to demonstrate that society in general (in this case the local townsfolk and the judiciary system) are still behind the curve in understanding Asperger’s.
The way in which the novel moves between drama, comedy and tragedy is extremely assured.
This is an impressive and moving novel and arguably Jodi Picoult’s best work.
Our book group as a whole was extremely impressed with the novel and the experience of reading a book without any clue as to it’s title , content or who had written it was an intriguing one.