House Rules by Jodi Picoult

I think cats have Asperger‘s. Like me, they‘re very smart. And like me, sometimes they simply need to be left alone

- Jacob ”House Rules” by Jodi Picoult

This is the third Jodi Picoult book I’ve read, the first two being “Picture Perfect” and “My Sister’s Keeper”. I liked both the books but one thing I found similar, that is  illness. May be its memory loss as in ”Picture Perfect” or it is leukemia as in ”My sister’s keeper”.  For my surprise ”House Rules” is also about a medical condition and here it is Asperger‘s syndrome. I have read recently a book about autism (”Curious Case of Dog in the Night Time” where the main character has autism) and found similar symptoms. I am not sure if both Asperger‘s and autism falls into same category.

I love the story line in this book, but it seemed to drag on forever! Emma Hunt is single mother taking care of her eighteen-year-old son Jacob who has Asperger‘s and Theo her 15 year old normal son. Asperger’s syndrome, a disorder characterized by a compulsive attachment to order and routine, a tendency to take comments literally, hypersensitivity to bright lights, human touch, and scratchy fabrics, a reluctance to make eye contact, lack of empathy, painful bluntness, and difficulty relating to others. Theo loves his brother but being normal makes him neglected. Jacob is found of crime busters series and loves to set up his own crime scene at home with corn syrup for Emma to find out the crime. He is  not friendly with everyone but he is very close to his tutor Jess. One fine day she goes missing and Jacob is murder suspect. Who killed Jess? Why Jacob was suspected? Will he be able to prove his innocence when he can’t even make eye contact?

Its a time pass story, my rating : 3 out of 5. Wanted to give 2 but the thriller story line increased my rating. Its a good book if you are mystery fan. Book started off well with lot of suspense in it, but sadly by end there was hardly suspense left.

Pretty Little Liars by Sara Shepard

Its one of my favorite young adult novels, even though I read it once long back, I wanted to read it once again before I review it. I really appreciate the author for creating such a wonderful suspense story. I so wanted to read the remaining books but I was caught with other books. I watched Complete 1 season of ”Pretty little liars” and 2 season is  waiting to be watched in my system. I heard that they are broadcasting the 3 season next week on ABC family.

Imagine you having a popular BFF and everyone wants to be you, but you are not sure weather having such a BFF is curse or blessing. This is how it  is for Aria, Spencer, Hanna and Emily. Their BFF Alison disappears during the slumber party.After her disappearance, the four friends gradually drift apart until no one can even recall they were once friends. It’s now three years later and the teens are about to start their junior year. Spencer is very clever and competitive with her older sister about everything, Hanna is now the new model like girl but carries a terrible secret about her drastic makeover,Aria is back from Iceland with her family and has a crush on a new boy, unfortunately she just found out he’s her new English teacher, and Emily is the  good girl doing what she can to please her parents, that is until she meets Maya and finds out a new change in her. All four have secrets and they shared it only with Alison who took it with her to grave or thats what they think until it all starts coming back to them haunting. They start getting message and mails about their little secrets by A. Their life is complete mess now!  Who is A? What happened to Alison? What are their secrets?

Now that I read this book, I will soon start reading remaining books from ”Pretty little liars series”. Once I finish this series I want to read Lying game by the same author.