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“Because it’s exhausting to be different. Especially when you know that you can never stop pretending.”

3/5

I guess this is this month’s first spontaneous read! Leah Scheier’s Rules of Rain drew me in with its intriguing synopsis and-surprise, surprise-pretty cover. Told ya I’m a sucker for those.

Rules of Rain revolves around a teenage pair of twins, Rain Serenity and Ethan David. (I know, I know. “Rain Serenity”? Yeah, it’s explained, so don’t worry.) With her parents divorced and Ethan being diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder, Rain’s been pretty much the “adult” of the house for as long as she can remember. She makes Ethan’s food (with her own, special recipes), comforts him when he starts panicking, and is always ready to listen to him when he needs it.

When Liam, Rain’s longtime crush, enters into her life, things start to take a turn for the unpredictable-something which Rain is definitely not used to, and definitely is not fond of. One party is all it takes for things to take a turn for the worse, and with Ethan slowly becoming more independent from her, Rain finds herself in a maze of confusion she may as well never get out of.

Spoilers ahead!

Here’s the thing with Rules of Rain: the concept is great, the method of execution…could’ve been better.

I was particularly excited for this book, because I’ve only read a few novels in which a character is autistic, and I wanted to explore more. When it comes to Ethan, I can confidently say that I was not disappointed.

I can’t confidently say that the representation was 100% accurate, as I myself am not an expert, but I can say that he felt real. And the way he tackles the difficulties hurled at him by all sorts of characters in all sorts of situations was amazing. I’m so proud of this baby. We start this book with Rain telling-and in some cases showing-us about all the things that are different about her brother: he can’t stand loud noise, he’s very uncomfortable with skin-to-skin contact, etc. And the way his character is developed is a joy to read. We see this scared, lost boy grow and learn and it’s so emotional. You just can’t help but root for Ethan; he’s adorable and smart (can he please do my biology exam?!) and hard-working.

But if you ask me about Rain…

…just no.

Look, I tried really hard to like Rain. I really did. But can I just know why she treats her brother like he’s someone lesser than her, with no hope of reasoning with??

Over and over, Rain feels the need to remind us that, because her brother is autistic, he can never feel proper “emotions” and will never be able to “get close” to others, and she absolutely freaks out when he says he wants to try new things.

Rain is always looking down on her brother, which confuses me, because from what we see in the book, she loves him a whole lot. Her whole life is built around him-she has her whole future planned out with only Ethan in mind. So why does she keep degrading him?

Also, Rain, as a character, is very confusing and, to me, somewhat annoying. During the entirety of the book, she goes like:

“I should support my brother. If he wants to go to a party, let him go. If he wants to try a relationship, I should cheer him on.

…

But my brother is autistic and therefore incapable of doing these things so I should proceed to mercilessly remind him of this.”

Uh…okay. So you call those jerks who imitated Ethan at school “bullies”, but you don’t count as one because you’re his sister? You’re degrading him just as much as they are!

Even if you keep that aside, Rain keeps changing her opinion on things throughout the story and repeating herself to the point that you just become fed-up. She’s not a likable protagonist, at least not for me. The only part where I actually liked her was in the last chapter, and that’s it.

And Rain is not the only one who looks down on her brother-even her parents do. Every time their mother speaks about Ethan, she makes it sound like he’s a hopeless case. When his father showed up, he gave him this ‘list’ of things he had to do in order to become ‘normal’. They treat him like a burden. Look at this:

Rain about Ethan: “Without Ethan by my side, I can enjoy the heat and energy of the crowd, and for just a minute I forget that I have a brother outside.”

Their mother about Ethan: “He was just parroting medical textbooks like he always does.”

Their father about Ethan (and Rain, too): “A few dates later, a couple of drinks, and we made a bad choice one night.”

All I’m sayin’ is-I feel like Rain’s best friend, Hope, and her crush, Liam, are more supportive to Ethan than his own family.

Speaking of those two-I loved the secondary characters. Hope is a gem, and is constantly there for Rain (even when Rain is being difficult and just unfair). She sees Ethan as Ethan, not just as “that kid who can never have friends or date because he has autism”. She’s willing to listen to him, to give him a chance. I’m so glad Ethan has a girl like Hope in his life.

And Liam-oh my God. Liam, that sweet child.

He deserves better than Rain, okay? There, I said it. Yeah, they both mess up at the party, and Rain nearly dies later (long story), but if you’d just see how devastated he is. He’s the type of person with a low self-esteem, and he apologises over and over and over. And I seriously feel like Rain took him for granted and just hurt him however she liked, be it intentionally or not.

She breaks up with him in the end because: “How can I explain why I decided to break Liam’s heart and mine as a precaution against our future heartaches?”

…Rain, as level-headed as you claim yourself to be, this is basically like not driving a car because you’re afraid you’ll crash. It doesn’t make sense. And you’re the one who’d wanted to be “spontaneous”, anyway.

Honestly, Liam is such a sweetheart and he loves Rain like crazy. If he could have gone through that near-death experience instead of her, he would have. Her father literally punches him and gives him a black eye, and all Liam says is, “It’s okay. I deserved it.” In fact, he even says that he wishes Ethan had also punched him. “I wanted him to punch me, you know? He had every right to.”

The issue with Liam isn’t exactly solved at the end, either. All that happens is that Rain realises that she was happy with him and wants them to try over again, even if they end up going separate paths later, but that’s in the last chapter, so basically, this book ends with a heartbroken and shattered Liam.

Poor Liam.

This book gets brownie points when it comes to Marcus and Kathy, known as “The Octopus” for the majority of the book, mainly because they’re always a tangle of limbs and can’t keep their eyes off of each other.

Until we learn that Marcus is gay, of course. (Yay for diversity!)

Kathy is, naturally, confused and upset, because she wishes he’d trusted her enough to tell her face to face. The thing is, Marcus comes out when he isn’t ready (in short: too much punch) and becomes extremely lost and scared.

Their character development is amazing. Albeit a little abrupt, but the way Kathy grows from this girl who can’t separate herself from her boyfriend to a supportive and independent friend, and the way Marcus learns to come to terms with who he is, is beautiful. I loved these two, and this sub-plot is one of the few I’ve read that is actually excellent and eye-opening.

Overall, the plot was enjoyable. Those blog posts and journal entries sprinkled in here and there were a joy to read. Rain has a passion for food-and while it’s, uh…not exactly ‘ordinary’-it’s endearing how hard she works on her recipes. Ethan keeps a journal, and it was a good idea to give us an insight on how he feels about things, because more often than not, he calls out the characters when they’re doing something disrespectful towards him. Such as talking about him like he isn’t even there when he is, assuming that they know everything about him… (*cough* Rain. *cough*)

“I don’t know how to tell her that she frequently misreads me too.”