Review: 5 stars = I freaking LOVED this book
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 2, 2014
I am fortunate that in my career, I get to work with children and adults with Developmental Disabilities. When I read the blurb for The First Three Rules, I was interested to see how the author was going to portray Rudy but I wasn’t ready to commit to reading and reviewing it based on the blurb alone. Fortunately, the book was available on Amazon so I downloaded the sample, read it, and knew I HAD to read this book. Rudy’s character is introduced within the first few pages and I immediately connected to him. It was clear to me that the author is well acquainted with someone (or several someones) who has a mental disability and presented Rudy as what he is, a human being with feelings who just sees the world a bit differently. The way in which Ms. Wilder portrayed several peoples’ judgmental reactions toward Rudy further supports this. Just her presentation of Rudy is worth a 5-star rating in my opinion, but she doesn’t stop there.There are so many elements within this novel that make it ripe for the story to go wrong and the reader led astray: Rudy has a disability, Ellis and Jon are homosexual, Jon is suicidal and suffering from PTSD, and Jon sees his dead brother’s ghost in potentially fatal situations (there is another element, but it is borderline spoilerish, so it’s not included in the list). However, Ms. Wilder has managed to combine all of these elements to an amazing book. I absolutely love the relationship that is developing between Ellis and Jon. These are two men who are so in need of love that neither can believe their fortune in finding the other. They fulfill one another’s emotional needs so beautifully. As for their physical needs, Ellis is a virgin because he has been Rudy’s sole caretaker since the age of twelve. This leads to some really hot foreplay scenes and smoldering sex scenes once Jon feels that Ellis is comfortable with them being intimate (and not just going along with it because he wants to make Jon happy).This is the first book in the trilogy and I am so irritated that I have other books I have to read right now because all I want to do is grab books two and three to see how the story unfolds. I need to know what happens when Jon gets out of the hospital (oh yeah, you gotta read it now). I want to know why Jon keeps seeing his brother’s ghost. I cannot wait to find out how it is that Rudy can always find what he is looking for (I have my suspicions). And I absolutely MUST see how the relationship between Jon and Ellis continues to develop. Ms. Wilder has hooked me big time with this series and I will be finding out what the rest of the rules are as soon as possible.I received a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.Reviewed by Angela at Crystal's Many Reviewers!