The Usual Rules : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: 9/11 Tragedy from a Teen's Viewpoint
Review: This book was just as good as Maynard's memoir and other novel, At Home in the World. Like To Die For, she uses real-life current events as a springboard for the story. In this story, a 13-year-old and her family recover from the death of her mother in the World Trade Center disaster. This book is good for both teen and adult audiences. The unconventional Christmas dinner was one of my favorite chapters in the book. The only things I didn't care for were how the author told the story in an odd present tense and how she refused to use quotation marks for any dialogue in the story. Don't let this stop you from reading the book.

Rating:
Summary: You don't want this book to end.
Review: This was a great book! I feel like the characters became my friends and I miss them since I finished the book. Your heart will ache for the pain that Wendy, Josh and Louie feel.
I know this was a novel but it feels like a true story. Joyce Maynard has taken a tragic event in history and made it deeply personal. In addition to feeling the personal sadness for anyone who lost a love one on 9/11/01 this book is also a coming of age book for young people. I highly reccommend this book as a way to open dialog for blended families.
Old fans of Joyce Maynard will enjoy this book and those less familiar with her will want to read eveything she ever wrote.

Rating:
Summary: An unforgettable story
Review: When I first picked this book up and read that it was about a young girl whose mother is killed on 9/11 I almost put it back down. I was afraid the subject matter would be much too sad and intense. I'm so glad now that I did not pass on reading it. It is a beautiful novel and I absolutely loved it!

On the morning of September 11, 2001, thirteen-year old Wendy is living in New York City with her mother, stepfather and four-year old brother, Louie. Shortly after Wendy leaves for school her mother, Janet, leaves to go to her job as an administrative assistant on the eighty-seventh floor of one of the World Trade Center Towers. Later that morning the tragedy unfolds and as hours turn into days and there is no word from her mother, Wendy and her family must face the devastating fact that Janet is one of the victims and will never again return home to them. Wendy's biological father shows up shortly thereafter and persuades her to leave New York and return with him to his home in California. Even though he has never before taken much of an interest in her life he now feels that she belongs with him, and not the beloved stepfather she has known for the past five years.

This story is very emotional and often heartbreaking but also uplifting and above all, excellently written. Ms. Maynard draws the reader into Wendy's warm and loving home life from the very first paragraph. You will come to feel as if you are a member of this family and will definitely feel the same devastating loss of Wendy's mother, a fun-loving somewhat quirky woman whose dream had always been to become a famous dancer on Broadway. By far the most appealing facet of the novel, though, is its focus on Wendy's relationships with her father and stepfather, two completely different men who both just happened to love the same woman at some point in their lives and who now each have something positive to offer Wendy.

The book offers a great deal of insight into what it must have been like for those who lost family members on Sept. 11, 2001. The author's descriptions of New York City in the hours and days shortly after the tragedy are very enlightening, especially for those of us who do not live in that part of the country. The overall sense of despair and the desperation to find family members cannot really be adequately transferred through news reports on a television screen. Ms. Maynard does an excellent job of conveying at least some of these emotions here. This is a wonderful book and an unforgettable story. I highly recommend it!