The rules of survival by nancy werlin
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This book addresses issues that have previously been considered somewhat touchy in adolescent literature, such as abuse and murder, but it does so in a way that readers can easily understand and in a way that is appropriate for the adolescent audience. His character helps young readers to realize that adults and children can have much in common and that it is nearly impossible to tell on the surface exactly what someone is going through. Murdoch takes on the role of a parent and risks his own life doing all that he can to help them, giving the children a new sense of hope. When a man named Murdoch enters the lives of Matt, Callie, and Emmy unexpectedly, however, all of their lives change forever.
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Nikki gets much pleasure out of scaring her children she even holds Emmy over the edge of a cliff one day for the sake of proving a point. Nikki's moods change nearly by the minute, and because of this, the children come face to face with danger a number of times. The three children learn early on that, to survive, they must stick together at all costs. He assumes responsibility for his two younger sisters, Callie and Emmy. Josie PattersonMatt grows up quickly when he figures out that his mother, Nikki, is psychotic. The plot moves swiftly and unrelentingly to a climax that visits themes common to some of Werlin's earlier works and offers an uneasy recognition of the same conclusion David Yaffe voiced in The Killer's Cousin (Delacorte, 1998/VOYA October 1998), "Anyone in this world can have the power of life and death over someone else. When their mother begins dating a complicated man named Murdoch, Matthew casts this newcomer as the family's savior and is frustrated and depressed when Murdoch does not immediately rise to the occasion. The siblings spend much of their time on edge, attempting to appease their mercurial mother and protect Emmy from her often-violent wrath. Much of what Matthew describes involves his and Callie's attempts to protect the younger and more vulnerable Emmy. In the novel, Matthew recounts his thirteenth through sixteenth years, during which he, Emmy, and their "middle" sister, Callie, lived in a small apartment in South Boston with their manic and abusive mother. Eighteen-year-old narrator Matthew introduces the novel with a letter to his younger sister, Emmy the body of the book is what he calls the "true story of our family's past" and is written in short, tight, first-person chapters that occasionally address his sister-and readers, his "real" audience.
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If anything, it is one of her most deliciously harrowing works. But the departure from genre does not mean that Werlin's newest book lacks suspense. Unlike Werlin's previous four novels, this latest includes nary a mystery element. But can he call upon his hero? Or will he have to take measures into his own hands? A heart-wrenching portrait of a family in crisis, this is Nancy Werlin's most compulsively readable novel yet. When Murdoch inevitably breaks up with their mother, Matt knows he needs to take action. When, amazingly, Murdoch begins dating Matt's mother, life is suddenly almost good. But then Matt witnesses Murdoch coming to a child's rescue in a convenience store, and for the first time, he feels a glimmer of hope. For Matt and his sisters, life with their cruel, vicious mother is a day-to-day struggle for survival.