Review: The Rules of Survival by Nancy Werlin

Author: Nancy Werlin
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Just so you guys know, it didn't choose to read this book. I had to read either this or Fat Kid Rules the World for summer reading. I actually really liked this.

Here's the synopsis:

"For Matt and his sisters, life with their cruel, vicious mother is a day-to-day struggle for survival. But then Matt witnesses Murdoch coming to a child?s rescue in a convenience store, and for the first time, he feels a glimmer of hope. When, amazingly, Murdoch begins dating Matt?s mother, life is suddenly almost good. But the relief lasts only a short time. When Murdoch inevitably breaks up with their mother, Matt knows he needs to take action. But can he call upon his hero? Or will he have to take measures into his own hands? A heart-wrenching portrait of a family in crisis, this is Nancy Werlin?s most compulsively readable novel yet."

Wow! What a touching book. I read this book for school and let me tell you I was not at all excited to read this book. When I did start to read this book it was amazing. I loved it. I felt that Matt was such a vivid character. He at first was very scared of his mother but as he continued to grow older he became less scared and more worried about helping his family. I loved how he was so brave and selfless.

I found that the whole book was basically the plot and so there really was so problem at all that would start somewhere in the middle of the book and be solved at the end. Instead the problem started on the first page and basically ended on the last. I really don't like to read books that do that but in this book it worked.

Nikki, the mother, pissed me off way too much. What mother, even if she is crazy, gets their first grader drunk just to shut up? Honestly, I wished that Matthew had kicked her head in. At least she wouldn't she wouldn't be terrorizing anyone even after she had left them.

I wished that in the book the author had written about what had happened to Murdoch. I had known from the beginning that he had been abused as a child but I wanted to know more. All I got that it was his dad that had abused him.