She scared the heck out of me, and I'm a grown adult, I can just imagine how all the characters felt. Nikki is completely insane, I'll put that out there, I don't think I could ever dream up a character this twisted and wrong.
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It is only after Nikki tries to make make Murdoch's life a living hell that he gets involved. After an incident Matthew cannot ignore, he goes to his biological father as well as Murdoch to beg their help to escape from his mother. You'd think with Nikki's behaviour it would be easy for one of the various adults involved in the story to stand up and act to try to get the children away from her, but they don't. These things aren't necessarily done in secret either Nikki's ex-boyfriend Murdoch witnessed Emmy being held off a cliff by her ankles, and Aunt Bobbie (Nikki's sister) sees similar things on a daily basis since she lives in the same house. Having a knife held to your throat because you stole a cookie, and being slammed in the face with a bag of mussels for trying to clean up the kitchen are some of the (believe it or not) minor things done to the children by their own mother. The events in the novel take place when Matthew was 13-15, Callie was 11-13, and Emmy was 5-7. I read this in the span of a few hours because I was so caught up in the lives of Matthew and his sisters and what they had to endure.The story is told by 17-year-old Matthew to 9-year-old Emmy in the form of a letter. How bad could the mother character be, right? Famous last words. When I saw this and realized this was the book with the 'terrible mother', I figured I'd give it a shot and see what people were so up in arms about. While I was researching Impossible, Werlin's most recent book that I read this past month, I remember several commenters saying they preffered Impossible over Werlin's previous novel (The Rules of Survival) because of they hated the 'terrible mother'. Someone who can maybe help him get rid of his mother for good.
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Then, suddenly, there's a possible ally on the horizon. But secretly, inside, he's growing tired and hopeless. Matt's managed to keep himself and his sisters safe, more or less. Matt has long since put himself in charge of protecting his sisters from their enemy. And sometimes, they’re people who say they love you, and mean it." They taught me to understand that there are people in this world who mean you harm. They taught me to expect danger around every corner. He says: "Emmy, the events we lived through taught me to be sure of nothing about other people. It's written in the form of a long letter to Matt's youngest sister. Islam and modernity must be reconciled.The Rules of Survival is the story of Matthew Walsh of South Boston, and his sisters, Callie and Emmy. I see no other way forward for us - at least no other way that is not strewn with corpses. People of all faiths, or of no faith, have a great interest in a changed Islam: a faith that is more respectful of the basic doctrines of human rights, that universally preaches less violence and more tolerance, that promotes less corrupt and less chaotic governments, that allows for more doubt and more dissent, that encourages more education, more freedom, and more equality before a modern system of law.
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Nor is my dream of a Muslim Reformation a matter for Muslims alone.