Rules Of Rain is about a quirky cook loving teen, Rain, who helps watch over her Autistic twin brother, Ethan. Rain has worked out a schedule and rules of sorts for her brother to keep him happy and safe. Every day they go for a run together rain, or shine. Rain cooks unique dishes for her mom and brother to try. Life seems normal until her best friend comes over and Rain has the realization that her BFF has a crush on her brother. This wasn’t part of Ethan’s rules to keep him safe. This is out of her comfort zone, but does Ethan even realize a girl likes him? Rain gets partnered with her crush Liam in science. Will he end up being the boy of her dreams? This novel discusses the hard topics of family relationships and when to stand up for yourself. Romance is a big theme and the different ways that first love can be expressed. The other major theme is sibling relationships and how they can morph over time.
I can relate to Rain’s character because I, myself, struggle with being OCD in wanting things to be a certain way and when they aren’t I do tend to get grumpy. I’m not a cook, so I can’t relate to her cooking obsession, but I’d appreciate her unique cookies. As for Ethan, he’s a character that sort of stands off in the shadows, but then blossoms through out this book. The sibling relationship between Rain and Ethan is almost like classic older to younger sibling in how they relate to eat other since Rain is like a mother hen towards Ethan though they are twins. I can relate to Ethan in this regard because my younger sister has the dominant personality to my passive aggressive one.
If you love a book that will have you asking for more then go find a copy of this sweet, powerful book. I started it and it took a bit of time for me to get into the layout of the way the novel is laid out (Rain has her blog posts at the start of the chapters followed by Ethan’s journal entries), but once I got into the book’s rhythm I couldn’t put it down. I don’t know lots about Autism, so this novel was a nice primer on Autism. I received my ARC of Rules Of Rain by Leah Scheier from NetGalley in exchange for my review. I hope this book will be made into a movie because I want to watch it now.
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