House Rules

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Hello,

has anyone read this book by Jodi Picoult? I'm about 2/3 of the way through. Anyone want to discuss?

Thanks,

I haven't had the time yet, though I do want to. What are your impressions so far? Would you say it is a worthy read?

It's kept my interest so far, though it's not the kind of book I usually read.

On the Asperger's angle, my initial impressions were that the "child" is either further along the spectrum than Asperger's or maybe the author got the symptoms right but somehow they don't seem to fit together authentically for me. Then again, my child is very borderline and high functioning, so maybe he still fits with Asp. even though he's not as high functioning as my child. Overall, he's a very "classic" Asperger's and my child is a non-classic Asperger's. So maybe that's where the disconnect comes in.

I also think the mother caters to the Asp character too much, even at the expense of her other child. I know spectrum parents get accused of that all the time but in reality I see most spectrum parents doing a good job of balancing the needs of their AS kids with those of their other kids and themselves. Not all the time, but mostly.

On it's good points, it's interesting to read about how this character navigates in an NT world.

I just finished this book, and I really liked it.

I thought the author did a pretty good job of writing an asperger's character. Granted, he had pretty much literally ALL of the possible aspie characteristics -- which would seem to be overkill to some people -- but it works fairly well to move the story along and make for an interesting character. True, he isn't that much like my son, but he still was quite an interesting guy.

I liked the story a lot. I liked the characters and thought the story line was very fun to read, just as a sort of mystery. I've never read Jodi Picoult before, so this was a nice introduction to her literature -- I'll definitely be reading more of her work in the future.

The other thing that I found was that I REALLY related to the mother. There was at least one passage that I was reading where, suddenly, I realized I was crying because THAT WAS EXACTLY HOW I FELT WHEN I DEALT WITH THAT PARTICULAR ASPECT of my son's life. It was like geez, somebody FINALLY understands. I'm going to have my husband read the book, just so that he has an opportunity to "get" what it's like to be the Mom.

Also, I thought that the aspects of being a sibling of a kid with asperger's was an interesting angle -- Picoult did a great job of representing that character.

All in all, I really liked this book -- and I'm happy to see that somebody else has been reading it too!

Thanks for the feedback.

The subject line caught my attention as "house rules" are what my husband and I are trying to impose on our 18 year old son (my step-son).

He's been doing well in school, has been holding down a 30 plus hour a week job (Subway), but we can't seem to keep him under control around his siblings. He seems to disrupt whichever household he is in with no consequences...

Example: This past weekend, my "kids", 23 & 26 came over to the house to put a couple of mopeds together. My stepson was told as were my kids, that stepson was not to ride it. He had never been on one and my husband and I were going to teach him when we returned from our weekend getaway.

At first my stepson was going to be staying with his mom, but ended back up at our house because he was having a meltdown there.

When my kids were putting it together, stepson went into an absolute rage and started throwing things (wrenches, gas cans, whatever) because he was told he couldn't ride. My stepson continually lies and lied about having ridden one his brother has. His brother does not have a moped and he has NEVER ridden. He ended up being approached by my 23 year old to be settled down. Stepson took off down the street and called the police.

My kids were made to leave and his mother ended up coming and getting him. We left our getaway cabin at midnight to make the 4 hour drive home.

My kids have made it a point to mention that they will not come over when stepson is there as this has happened once before with the angry outbursts and lies...

How do you impose "house rules" when things like this happen? He's an excellent student at school (senior year), has never been in trouble at school, is doing a fantastic job at his work, but yet can't seem to control his anger around his step brothers or siblings....

Sorry this is off topic, but couldn't find a thread that pertained to me.

thanks.