"Rules" By Cynthia Lord

This novel is all about conflicts. The main character, Catherine, is constantly arguing with almost every character she encounters, including herself. Towards the end of the novel Catherine realizes that she is the cause of all the conflicts.

The first conflict Catherine comes to encounter is the long lasting conflict with her brother, David. David has autism and he often embarrasses Catherine. Catherine thinks that David is like the devil or something and wants to purposely ruin her life, more specifically her relationships with people. But in reality, David physically can not control what he does, his brain will not allow him to. She begins to think of these rules for him to follow so that maybe, he can attempt to follow these rules and try not to embarrass Catherine.

The second conflict Catherine encounters is the conflict with her parents. Catherine, her mom, and her dad trained themselves to rebuild and revolve their lives around David and his needs, and although Catherine loves her brother, she is totally sick of this life style. Catherine believes that her needs have become almost completely inexistent to her parents and that they really do not seem to notice her anymore. She feels that her needs are hidden by David’s needs.

The next conflict Catherine finds herself in is with Jason and Kristi. Jason is a mentally handicapped boy who is mute and uses a book with cards that have words on them to speak because he can not do it himself. He also is in a wheelchair. She lies to him constantly about her “new neighbor friend”, Kristi. Catherine has not yet told Kristi that Jason is handicapped. She just knows that Jason is this boy whom Catherine spends much of her time with. So whenever Jason asks to meet Kristi, Catherine always makes up lame excuses so that she may not be caught in her lies. In the end, Catherine is caught and she feels terrible about it. Jason and Kristi both end up forgiving her, though.