The Usual Rules
by Joyce Maynard

Macmillan, 2003, 390 pp., $10.00
ISBN 0312242611

Thirteen year old Wendy has already been through a lot it her life. Her father walked out on her mother in New York when she was very young and she hasn’t seen him in several years. Her mother, a once Broadway loving dancer turned accountant has gotten re-married to a jazz loving stepfather (Josh) and now Wendy has a new stepbrother (Louie), like most thirteen year old girls she gets fairly annoyed with her mother but, she knows, she couldn’t live with out her. One Tuesday her life is turned upside down when a she hears the news that will change her life: the World Trade Center has been hit.

Her life gets even more complicated when her biological father shows up at her doorstep. Just days earlier she had been arguing with her mother asking her why she couldn’t go to California to be with her dad. Josh lets her go, saying it would be good for a change. Wendy says goodbye to Louie who still doesn’t understand were his mother is. 

California is different. Wendy’s adjusting to living with her father in the tiny town. But she discovers many new people including a pregnant teen living by herself and her father’s girlfriend. Through meeting new people and her many adventures she finds herself again and realizes the truth about her mother. Meanwhile back in New York, Josh has changed. He’s having a hard time with Louie who is becoming quite infuriated that his mother isn’t there. Back in New York her life is still in pieces. She has to decide between her torn and tragic life in New York, filled with memories of her mother or her new life In California where she has just found herself again. 

This book is a devastating story about love, loss, finding yourself and making the decisions you don’t want to have to make. Wendy has to decide to live either with the painful memories of her mother who she has known her whole life. Or her father, who she has barley met and now is living with him. You can tell that she doesn’t want to make the decision but she knows that she has to. While reading this book I really thought that I felt what Wendy was going through, I actually felt what all the characters were going through. There was Wendy who had just lost a parent. Josh who had just lost his wife, and has to take care of Louie who doesn’t know where his mother is. There’s a lot of characters with different personalities but Joyce Maynard really capture the personalities if each character. 

I would recommend The Usual Rules to anyone who likes a serious and tragic book.  Maynard does fantastic job writing about such a sensitive topic like 911. It seems like it would be hard to write about a topic that was so tragic but I think Maynard really gets what it would be like. She took it to another level when she explains it in a thirteen year olds point of view that has already had a torn up life. It is truly amazing on how she does such a good job. I would recommend this to age groups to anyone twelve and up. It’s one of those books that someone needs to experience for themselves.

~ reviewed by Kate S.