Seventeen-year-old Rose Levenson has a decision to make: Does she want to know how she’s going to die? Because when Rose turns eighteen, she can take the test that will tell her if she carries the genetic mutation for Huntington’s disease, the degenerative condition that is slowly killing her mother. With a fifty-fifty shot at inheriting her family’s genetic curse, Rose is skeptical about pursuing anything that presumes she’ll live to be a healthy adult—including going to ballet school and the possibility of falling in love. But when she meets a boy from a similarly flawed genetic pool, and gets an audition for a dance scholarship in California, Rose begins to question her carefully-laid rules.
I really wanted to love Rules for 50/50 Chances and there were times where I thought it was possible but unfortunately, it just ended up being okay for me. There are some great things about it but the ending left me feeling flat as a reader even if I thought the ending was positive for the main character.
Rules for 50/50 Chances introduces us to Rose, a teenage girl watching her mom deteriorate from Huntington's Disease. In addition to watching her mom die a slow and debilitating death, the real kicker for Rose is that she has a 50/50 chance of inheriting this disease from her mother. Geneticists do not allow anyone to take the test for Huntington's until they are at least 18 years old, though it's recommended to wait much longer than that since symptoms often do not occur until the person is well into their thirties. Rose doesn't think she can live with the uncertainty hanging over her head and decides she has to know her Huntington's status before making her future life choices. Enter Caleb, a cute and sweet boy who has her challenging all her beliefs about avoiding love and falling for someone since love and life are so unpredictable. Loss is the only thing that Rose really believes in...
Readers are taken on Rose's journey as she waits to learn the truth about her future. Along the way, Rose is forced to consider the rules she has set for herself, and the truth about where she really wants her life to lead her next.
As I stated above, I really wanted to love this one but I think the ending kind of killed it for me.
SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!! (DON'T READ IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE BOOK!)
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Rose deciding at the VERY end to not find out her test results killed me. While I cannot imagine how I would feel or act placed in that circumstance, as a reader who has been following along her story, it's anticlimatic to realize that I will NEVER know if Rose will develop Huntington's or not. As a reader, that SUCKS. It may very well have been the best choice for Rose but for me? Bah, humbug!
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END OF SPOILER!!!!!!
I really cannot imagine how I would feel if I were in Rose's shoes... to live with that kind of uncertainty hanging over you has to alter how you react and live in the world. And to watch your mom go through that? Heartbreaking! This book definitely has the potential to create the feels. Rose is a wee bit annoying at times but again, it's hard to imagine being in her place. All in all, it's worth a read. Some people have loved it... I'm more in-like. And that's okay.
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