The Rules of Survival takes a long, hard look at one of the more overwhelming experiences people find themselves faced with: abuse.Īnd this, Shmoopers, is why you should read it. We've all felt helpless before, right? Hopefully it's over something relatively minor-say, the inability to get our parents to sign off on a Spring Break trip-but for plenty of people, feelings of helplessness are in response to something major. What is The Rules of Survival About and Why Should I Care? But it's not until after they shake her off that their own stories are really allowed to emerge-no longer trapped in survival mode all the time, they can finally start really living their own lives. In The Rules of Survival, Matthew and his siblings need to be clever and brave and find ways to survive living with their mother. She is scarier than any imaginary monster these kids could dream up… and the story shows us how they survive their situation, and then eventually overcome it. She throws them to the ground, veers into oncoming traffic, locks them into rooms, and even holds knives to their necks while they're sleeping. Nikki, the kids' mother, commits monstrous acts against her own children. This book does not shy away from descriptions of some pretty awful abuse. So while it's a raw and heart-wrenching read, it's also a well-written tale about the Walsh siblings and their struggle to survive their mom's chaotic and violent reign of terror.

Or so the folks who nominated it for a National Book Award think, anyway. It isn't just serious, though-it's seriously awesome, too.

Okay, so this isn't the kind of book that you pick up for a fun, breezy beach read. Are you having a good day today? Feeling pretty good about the world? Got a bounce in your step? Well, consider yourself warned: This all might change once you start reading Nancy Werlin's The Rules of Survival, a brutally honest tale about abuse at the hands of the one person every kid is supposed to be able to trust: their mother.

The Rules of Survival by Nancy Werlin