Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: The Usual Rules: A Novel by Joyce Maynard ISBN: 0-312-24261-1 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 01 February, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.69 (26 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: An Honest and Quietly Amazing Novel
Comment: 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: 5
Summary: Simply Wonderful
Comment: 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: 4
Summary: 9/11 Tragedy from a Teen's Viewpoint
Comment: 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.
 |
Title: True Confessions of a Heartless Girl by Martha Brooks ISBN: 0374378061 Publisher: Melanie Kroupa Books Pub. Date: 01 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
 |
Title: The First Part Last (Coretta Scott King Author Award Winner) by Angela Johnson ISBN: 0689849222 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Pub. Date: 01 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
 |
Title: A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly ISBN: 0152167056 Publisher: Harcourt Children's Books Pub. Date: 01 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
 |
Title: East by Edith Pattou ISBN: 0152045635 Publisher: Harcourt Children's Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
 |
Title: 33 Snowfish by Adam Rapp, Timothy B. Ering ISBN: 0763618748 Publisher: Candlewick Press (MA) Pub. Date: 01 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $15.99 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
