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House Rules, Jodi Picoult
number of voters: 4
percentage of voters who finished the book: 100
highest rating: 6.75
lowest rating: 4
average rating: 5.6875
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The Case of the
Disappointed Book Club
In September of 2003,
the First Monday Reading Group was formed. They met monthly, discussing and
rating one book per month. The group was a success. By December of 2005, they
had read 22 books, but not one of the books had ever received that elusive
perfect rating—a 10.
Then, that December,
came a book by Jodi Picoult titled My Sister’s Keeper. The book was a hit. It received not only the first individual rating
of 10 but also the highest average rating (8.49) of any book that had come
before it.
Years passed, the
group became the Final Monday Reading Group, and in 2012 they decided to read
another Jodi Picoult book, House Rules.
It was to be the group’s 96th book. Many of the earlier group member’s had
moved away or had their time occupied by other interests and responsibilities.
But expectations were still piqued by the return of a Picoult title.
Those expectations
would be dashed, severely. House Rules, they discovered,
was exactly like every other Piccoult story: controversial topic + young love +
courtroom drama + unconventional ending = bestseller.
One might argue that
what some people call formula others call style or genre or niche. One might
argue that the formula is the reason Picoult’s books are bestsellers. One might
argue that our expectations were too high. One might argue that, yes, Picoult
did indeed need every single one of those when-will-it-ever-end five hundred
and sixty pages.
If that is the
argument you want to make, a Jodi Picoult book is just the book for you. But if
you ask the Final Monday Reading Group, we recommend that Jodi Picoult book be My
Sister’s Keeper.
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