In “House Rules” we meet several main characters, and from their perspective some parts of the story are told. The main focus is on the eighteen-year-old boy Jacob Hunt, with Asperger’s syndrome, then we see his mom (Emma) and brother (Theo), and then others. I think we should also add a society as a character, since that’s one of the main reasons to tell that story. How do we treat and how much effort do we put into understanding people that are different from us in one way or another.

Because of the syndrome, Jacob has a precise schedule for everything in his life. It’s hard for him to accept any intruding changes into his structured life. Life of his family is fully adjusted around Jacob’s needs. Jacob is extremely interested in forensic analysis. He watches a crime TV show everyday and takes notes. He likes to create crime scenes for his mom to solve. This obsessive interest plays a cruel trick on him. When he ends up in court accused in a murder.

It’s the third book by Jodi Picoult that I’ve read, and the one I liked the least. It felt too long, unnecessarily extended.

At some point I just wanted to tell the author: “Ok, I got it that this is the way he functions!”, or: “Ok, I already understood, that’s what makes him have a meltdown”. It was interesting at first to see detailed descriptions of the behaviour of a person with Asperger’s Syndrome. Their logical path can be so much different from what others have. You can’t just explain to people what’s the problem with a person that has a syndrome. You need to live, to spend time with them to clearly see how different their behaviour is. Though, it was explained to every other character that we met in the book, so it got repetitive.

Somehow one of my right away guesses was correct, so after some time listening to the book turned into endless waiting for the final twist.

A few characters in the book seemed unnecessary to me. They didn’t add much value or intrigue to the story, but we spent time learning about them.

I wouldn’t recommend reading it as a first book of this author, there are clearly better works. For the fans of Jodi Picoult who wants to mark all her books as “Read”, it’ll be ok.