Title: The Rules of SurvivalAuthor: Nancy Werlin
Matt, Callie and Emmy live in South Boston with their mom, Nikki, who makes their lives miserable. Many kids think their parents make their lives miserable by making them make their beds and take out the garbage, but Nikki really makes their lives miserable-- she brings home strange men, she does drugs, she hits them and she psychologically terrorizes them. When things finally become unbearable, the kids enlist the help of their dad, their aunt and a family friend to help out, but they're unsure if they can ever get truly free of Nikki's clutches.
The Rules of Survival is a good book, with interesting characters. It's hard to tell if Nikki is mentally ill or just evil, but reading about her definitely made me feel better about my own mothering skills. It's written for a young-adult audience, and it didn't feel like it reached across genres to be engrossing for an adult in the same way that other YA books, like say, The Book Thief does.
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