Nancy Star

This one has been on my TBR pile for a while now and for some reason I kept bypassing it. Glad I finally let it grab me... and grab me it did. I totally love this book and the characters inside. The story follows a quirky family throughout the years. And the twist at the end was completely unexpected. I did expect a twist but what I thought was going to happen was completely not what happened, and not even on my list of guesses. The little twist at the end allowed everything to come together and wrap up nicely albeit sad.… (more)

I really enjoyed Rules for Moving. I particularly fell in love with Henry, Lane's son. The parts of the book that are from his point of view were heart-wrenching. Henry is always reading his mother's expressions and seemed to be more in tune with her emotions than she was with his. After losing his father, Henry stops speaking. He will only speak to his mother. But there is more to his not speaking than the death of his father.

Lane's family... her parents and sister all seem to be detached from her and throughout the story Lane is not really sure why, but it turns out that it is because of something that happened when she was a child. I spent the entire story trying to understand her mother and father and it finally made sense in the end.

The reason I am not giving this book 5 stars is that I felt that Lane's husband, Aaron who passes away at the beginning of the book is never really developed. I wanted to know more about him, and I never got that from the story. I also could not sympathize with Lane's loss since she seemed so unmoved by her husband's death. Overall, I really liked the book and I am a big fan of Nancy Star, but I felt she did not provide certain details that would have given more insight into Lane and Aaron's relationship. But she brilliantly developed Lane's son, Henry. I think she could right a spin-off just based on Henry's perspective!… (more)

This was my first book by this author and I really didn't care for it. The writing style was a bit choppy as were all the characters. Glory Tangle was a horrible mother. She lied, kept secrets, and refused to communicate with her family. Her selfishness and neglect caused her son's death and her whole plan to keep her remaining three children apart after the loss of their brother didn't make any sense to me (even after finding out the youngest probably had brain damage). Who would do that? I didn't care for this character at all, but maybe I wasn't supposed to, so there's that. The idea of a pond that is maintained only by cutting a trench in the sand to connect it to the ocean every year was also strange. If that is really something that goes on in Martha's Vineyard, they should definitely barricade the area off so people can't get hurt. I find it hard to believe any beach community would allow it.… (more)