Rating: 
Summary: unusually amazing
Review: A while back I finished Joyce Maynard's The Usual Rules. It's impossible to say one looks forward to reading or enjoys a book that takes as its kickoff the destruction of the World Trade Center. In a very basic way, I think that nearly each person, certainly everyone I know, feels as though they somehow own the events of that day. In my case, by virtue of sheer geography, I'm just two degrees of separation away, meaning that I didn't lose anyone directly, but the number of those lost by people I know is obscenely huge. And then there are the pictures of the commuter lots in the towns I know so well with all those cars belonging to people who never came home. Rarely when reading a book have I been so aware of how the stylistic decisions an author makes affects the reader. Usually, I get annoyed with writers who don't offset dialogue in quotes; the absence of what is really itself a device somehow feels artificial and affected. But here that decision is a mercy. It creates just enough distance that the reader can get through the first 50-100 pages, knowing that Wendy, the 13-year-old girl who forms the heart of this story, will lose her mother when those planes hit. It's also a mercy having the tragedy occur relatively early on, so that both the reader and Wendy have sufficient time to recover. In terms of plot, afterwards, Wendy negotiates her New York life with her stepfather and halfbrother and her California life with her birth father, who she's hardly seen in years. It's a true coming-of-age novel, turning on the greatest American tragedy in recent memory. From what I remember of what little I heard people say of this book before I read it was that by virtue of subject matter and some people's impressions of the author, it must surely be exploitative. While I'm sure that as time goes on there will be exploitative novels written on the subject, this book isn't those books. It's not in the slightest exploitative; or, if it is, then every novelist who's ever written anything, sincere or no, is exploitative too. Rather, it impresses as being one person's attempt to use her art and talent to make sense of the incomprehensible. One finishes the book admiring Wendy's strength and spirit, and wanting good things to happen to her and to all those who lost so much on that awful day when the sky was an incredible blue.
Rating: 
Summary: An Honest and Quietly Amazing Novel
Review: At some point even the most extreme and horrific events, so raw and immediate now, become history. Novels, as opposed to other art forms or nonfiction, are a good gauge of this moment --- the moment when we can examine an event and begin to understand its aftermath and consequences. As evidenced by Joyce Maynard's latest novel THE USUAL RULES, 9/11 is now one of these events that characters (read: we) have survived and built a life after and in response to. This novel is not about 9/11, but that is the starting point --- the catalyst for action and change. On Tuesday, September 11th in Brooklyn, thirteen-year-old Wendy sits in class just as she would any other weekday. She left home slightly angry at her mother and a little annoyed at her stepfather, which seemed typical to Wendy these days. But when the earth beneath New York City shook and debris started raining from the sky, Wendy's perspective changed. Wendy's mother, a former dancer, worked in one of the World Trade Center towers. After the attack, Wendy, her stepfather Josh and her little brother Louie hold on to hope that she has survived. As the days go by, it becomes apparent that Wendy's mother is dead. When the biological father she hardly knows (but always dreams about) shows up, Wendy decides to go to California with him. She hopes that life with her father will help her heal and allow her to create a new life for herself. But she doesn't realize how difficult it will be to start again and leave Josh and Louie behind. In California Wendy does create a new life, but one based almost solely on shedding the traces of her past. She stops going to school and spends her time at a local bookstore reading the classics suggested by the friendly owner. She also befriends a teenage mother struggling to raise her son alone. To each she tells a different story of who she is and where she comes from. And she tries to build a family with her father and his girlfriend, who have family issues of their own. Much of Wendy's California life is concerned with defining family, and ultimately she yearns for the one she left behind in New York. THE USUAL RULES, as much as it is about healing and growing up, is about family. Yes, Wendy must mourn the loss of her mother, and Maynard captures her loss with a stinging accuracy. But the real story is that of Wendy gaining strength and deciding what she will do with her mother's memory, who she will become, and who she will include in her redefined understanding of family. Maynard's novel begins with an interesting prologue --- the story of Wendy's name. The prologue shares with the reader the family mythology Wendy's mother created for her. It also points to fairy tales fractured (Wendy is named for the nurturing character in Peter Pan) and how, while we may know who our parents hoped we'd be, we must on some level decide for ourselves who we will become. THE USUAL RULES is a tearjerker without being saccharine. It is written with an understated grace and clarity. The characters come across as real; sometimes frustrating, always likable. Maynard's stilted style is slightly unconventional and can be jarring at first. The flow of the novel comes from the action and emotion, for the most part, and not from the language. Yet it is easy to become lost in Wendy's story, and Maynard's unique voice becomes more comfortable to read as the novel progresses. Maynard's novel is many things --- a coming-of-age story, a story about discovering family, a story about healing --- all set against a national tragedy of singular proportion. Rarely do authors capture so well the voice, mind and heart of a thirteen-year-old girl, but Maynard does so with ease. THE USUAL RULES is an honest and quietly amazing novel. --- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman
Rating:
Summary: Simply Wonderful
Review: Even a year after the September 11th attack, the event still holds a powerful hand over us. In this touching, comming of age story about growing up, finding who you are in a world you cant understand, and dealing with death and finding hope in the midst of darkness, Maynard deals with all of these subjects with craft, meaning, and beautiful prose. Reading this book has given me even more insight and understanding on what happened that fateful day in September. What is so wonderful about this novel is Maynard's style of writing. She goes back and forth, from the present to the past, as the 13 year old protagonist remembers and celebrates her pretty, dancer mother's life. The best scene of the novel occurs when Wendy, the daughter, visits ground zero a few days later, after accepting the fact that her mother will never return and that she will continue to live and grow and change and there will be a time when her mother will not be able to recogonize and see the person she has become. As Wendy looks out at Ground Zero her mind flashes from the present to the past, as she pictures admist the rubble, plastic, metal, papers, stones, wood, her mother lying dead somewhere inside that mess, with the brand new red suit and shoes she had recently purchased with Wendy. She pictures the photo her mother kept on her desk, and realizes that somewhere amidst the flesh, plastic, papers, wood, and rubble, lies a scrap of the picture once on her mother's desk, of Wendy holding her younger brother happily in her arms. Amidst all the rubble, as Wendy continues to stare out into Ground Zero, the gold wedding band her bass playing musician stepfather gave to her mother, inscribed with the words..."Even more than music." Maynard paints such a beautiful picture for us, that we cannot help but reevalute our own lives and question what we think and deem as important in life. In "The Usual Rules" Maynard gives us a rare glimpse into a world post- September 11th and gives us hope and re establishes the old belief that "love is all we need."
Rating:
Summary: Where Her Heart Is
Review: For decades, fans of writer Joyce Maynard have known what her newest novel The Usual Rules is about to reveal: she is a gifted writer who illuminates what happens when ordinary people meet extraordinary, even, in the case of her newest novel, horrific circumstances. "The usual rules," Maynard whispers in her newest work, "do not apply." The usual rules are that a mother goes to work and comes home. That is the rule, unless the day is September 11, 2001, and the mother works in the World Trade Center. On that day, the usual rules ceased to apply for 13 year-old Wendy. From there, this story tears at both our hearts and our hopes. Wendy reluctantly leaves her much-love brother and step-father to travel to an unfamiliar father and an inner strength she doesn't know she possesses. This is both the story of a girl growing up and a girl growing old beyond her years. As she did in her widely syndicated column and her bestselling "To Die For" and "At Home in the World," Maynard embraces subjects that are too painful, too hearbreaking for less sturdy writers to touch. In taking on the World Trade Center tragedy, Maynard artfully convinces us that we are more than the hand fate deals us. There is in all of us, an ability to cope with unimagined hardships and unbearable sadness. Reviews at times trivialize Maynard's writing, saying that she deals with "little themes," unimportant subjects. But, as the attackers of September 11 taught us, it is those small subjects which ultimately create the most lasting and signficant outcomes. Wendy's story of what happens after the darkest day in all of our lives is the stuff that great novels are made of. With her gift for words and her fascination with people, Maynard again eschews the great unimagined for the love of everyday possibilities by chronicling who we were, who were are, and who we have a capacity for becoming. Like Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and Judith Guest's Ordinary People, Joyce Maynard's The Usual Rules gives us an unforgetable voice grown too old and wise too soon.
Rating:
Summary: A fitting tale about one of America's darkest days
Review: Having lived through Washington's chaos following September 11, I admit to being curious how master storyteller Joyce Maynard would handle the situation, from the New York perspective, in a novel. I stayed up all night to devour "The Usual Rules." This may be Joyce's best book yet. It's for mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, friends who build their own families, and anyone who has watched a green shoot poke up from the ashpit of loss. I think that covers just about everyone.
Rating:
Summary: Finished The Lovely Bones? Then you will LOVE this book!
Review: I absolutely loved this book and I applaud the author for tackling such a sensitive subject - she did it such a tasteful, satisfying way - The use of Sept 11th as a plot line for this book is in no way done is poor taste or as a gimmick. I found myself comparing this book to The Lovely Bones - perhaps it is because it is also told from the point of view of a 13 year old (or maybe the color of the book?!?!) But seriously, I really enjoyed reading this book - It is a heartfealt, touching story told in flowing, descriptive sentences - One could say the point of this story is that no one family is perfect and there is no one way to define a family - Wendy has two families - one on each coast - and neither one is better for her than the other - she is loved and respected equally by both - but in two entirely different ways - Teenage pregnancy is dealt with in an informative, educational way without being lectured on the subject - Autism, divorce, homelessness, and puberty are also brought into play - all in good taste and with good reason - don't worry about there being too many plot lines - everything happens for a reason in this story and it all blends together well - - But the heart of this story if family - true and true - There is no one who will love you more or who you can count on and turn to in time of crisis that is better prepared to handle it than your family - I recommend this book to all - Don't be afraid because of the reference to Sept. 11th - it is not the main point and it is not beaten into the reader's mind - the events are explained tastefully and a mature reader can easily see that it's about time to use the events of that horrific day to tell the story of families, heartache, loss - but most of all LOVE - Thank you Joyce Maynard - I hope you receive the recognition you so deserve for this book - C'mon everyone, spread the word about this book - Let's make this story, this year's Lovely Bones!!!
Rating:
Summary: Simply the best!!
Review: I am 15 years old and I found this book to be so great! There was no part of this book that I didn't enjoy reading. I think that any teenager capable of understanding in depth circumstances and the tragedies and heartache that life thrusts at people would certainly love reading this book. Read this book and immediately feel like you are involved in the story through the happy and sad, the laughter and the tears. ...I highly recommend this book!!
Rating:
Summary: Pleasantly Surprised
Review: I bought this book because I had read and enjoyed previous works by Ms. Maynard. When I first heard that the story was about the September Eleventh disaster I hesitated. I wasn't sure how much more I wanted to know about that subject. However, when I got into the book, I realized that that horrible day was merely a bit player (not to mention an excellent metaphor for the 'emotional disaster' that preadolescence is for all young females) in a warm and wonderful story about a young girl coming of age without the aid of 'the usual rules'. My heart ached for the travails Wendy had to go through but warmed at her ability to survive and even thrive in the face of them. The characters were so well drawn and fully dimensional that I felt that I knew them, or at least someone like them. This would be a great book club choice or a wonderful piece to be read by a mother and daughter together so as to better understand the issues facing them both. I ordered a second copy to give my mom for mother's day. Hope you all enjoy this lovely novel as much as I did.
Rating:
Summary: A beautiful meditation on loss, despair and hope
Review: I decided to read this book as a spiritual journey in my own quest for hope and healing with regard to 9/11/01. I was profoundly moved by it. It is the story of 9/11 and what happened to one imperfect family and, even more, to one teenage girl who lost her mother. The book made me cry, laugh and cry again and reaffirmed the truth that life is about death bringing about new life if we are open to the promise of it. I would highly recommend this book for young people (high schoolers) to read or for parents to read to children.
Rating:
Summary: Maynard does it again!
Review: I have loved everything Maynard has ever written, but this time I think she's written a book that will reach new readers and turn them into devotees like myself. What a bold topic, building a family dynamic around the tragedy of 9/11, but moving forward in the challenging step by step way that would ring true for any death,no matter the circumstances. Instead of the World Trade Center disaster overpowering this novel, the inner workings of an adolescent girl really hold the key to the story. There is hope where it's not expected, humor in the most subtle places and healing where it's most doubtful to occur. Just like real life.
Joyce Maynard is a gifted writer, and her use of language is flawless. She understands the interior world of children and is at her best when her young characters project their feelings and innocent observations onto adults. Like Maynard's parallel to Anne Frank, the reader appreciates the essentially positive attitude of the thirteen year old protaganist Wendy, and hopes that the world will catch on to the power of forgiveness and starting over.Could this be Maynard's well-deserved best seller? I hope so.
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