Literature / The Rules of Survival

The Rules of Survival is a 2006 Young Adult novel by Nancy Werlin.

Thirteen-year-old Matthew, eleven-year-old Callie, and five-year-old Emmy live with their sometimes-abusive, sometimes-loving mother Nikki, trying to survive the worst of her mood swings and keep her as happy as possible. When Matthew and Callie meet a stranger named Murdoch who is protective of abused children, they believe he might be the key to a better life. But Nikki is extremely possessive of what's hers, and she's not giving up her place in her children's lives that easily.

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Tropes:

• Abusive Parents:
  • Nikki is a deranged mother (implied to have borderline and/or narcissistic personality disorder) who switches on a dime between being overly affectionate to her three children and cruelly abusing them. Her oldest son Matthew recounts an incident where she held a knife to his neck for stealing cookies, as well as another where she took him and his sisters to eat at IHOP, then on the way home, decided the kids weren't being grateful enough for the food, so she drove the car into incoming traffic and didn't stop until they screamed that they loved her. After going to jail for trying to run down her ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend with her car, and losing custody of her children to her sister and ex-husband, she decides to torment them as much as she can in revenge. Eventually she kidnaps her youngest daughter Emmy and tries to poison her to death by forcing her to drink a very large amount of alcohol.
  • Besides Nikki, the first time Matthew and Callie meet Murdoch is when he confronts a father who screams at and shakes his son for taking a package of Reese's Pieces from the shelf.
• Alliterative Name: Murdoch McIlvane.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: In-universe, with Matthew's aunt, Bobbie. She helps Matthew and his sisters get away from their abusive mother Nikki (her sister) and later takes them in. He later learns that Nikki was the mean and manipulative one during her and Bobbie's childhood and would always get Bobbie in trouble for things she didn't do. Although Matthew loves his aunt, he privately wonders if part of her motivation for helping them get away from Nikki was to finally get some revenge on her evil sister for ruining her childhood and enjoy watching her life fall apart due to her own actions.
• An Aesop:
  • When children are being abused, people need to step in and help rather than ignore it until it's too late.
  • If someone is abusing you, just because they sometimes do nice things for you doesn't mean they're a good person, or that the abuse is less hurtful or damaging.
• Ax-Crazy: Nikki is prone to lashing out violently when things don't go her way, even towards her own children.
• Badass Bystander: Matthew and Callie's first experience with Murdoch is when they see him protect a kid getting screamed at and shook by his father (a big, intimidating man, it should be noted) by taking the kid away, telling the father to hit him (Murdoch) instead, and firmly telling the kid it's wrong for anyone to hurt him, no matter who does it.
• Beauty Is Bad: Nikki is a beautiful and flirtatious woman who easily seduces men into doing her bidding. She's also a pretty good contender for the worst mother in the world.
• Big Brother Instinct: The majority of Matthew's life has been spent trying to protect his two younger sisters from the wrath of their abusive mother. His first memory is comforting a crying Callie when he was four and she was two, while Nikki was smashing chairs in the kitchen.
• Big Sister Bully: When Nikki was a teenager, she would always get her sister Bobbie in trouble by lying and saying she did things that she didn't. Even as an adult, she makes fun of Bobbie behind her back and makes her children participate.
  Nikki: Bobbie served you dinner? She actually shared her food? So, do tell, what'd you eat there, frozen chocolate cake? A bowl of potato chips?
  Matthew: Chicken.
  Nikki: Kentucky Fried. And Bobbie ate all the biscuits, right? Slathered in butter? My sister is such a freak. How much do you suppose she weighs? Two hundred thirty?
• Calling Parents by Their Name: Matt refers to his estranged father as Ben. He thinks that it's because even when he was little, he was aware that he couldn't depend on Ben to protect him from Nikki's wrath.
• Children Are Innocent: Emmy is a bright, happy little girl who is protected from the worst of Nikki's abuses by her older siblings. When Nikki takes the kids out for a fun day at IHOP and Six Flags, Matthew and Callie are on edge all day waiting for something bad to happen and have to force themselves to pretend they're having fun, while Emmy has no idea what's coming and enjoys herself the entire time.
• Don't Split Us Up: One of the reasons Matthew and Callie never told anyone about their abusive mother was that they didn't want to risk being separated from each other and Emmy in foster care.
• Gone Horribly Right: When Murdoch has a restraining order against Nikki, he attempts to get her angry and provoke her into doing something stupid that would break it, getting her in legal trouble. That's exactly what happens when she drives recklessly and gets into a car accident involving Julie, who is paralyzed as a result and loses the ability to walk.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Doing literally anything Nikki doesn't like can make her fly into an explosive rage. Her son Matthew has spent his entire life walking on eggshells to keep her happy and making sure his sisters do the same.
• Has a Type: Murdoch inexplicably seems to be attracted to mean and selfish women like Nikki and the woman he was with at the convenience store. He wonders himself why he's not into nice women like Julie.
• It's All About Me:
  • Nikki cares only about her own happiness, or more precisely her freedom to indulge in uncontrolled hedonism, and wants everyone to bow to her whims.
  • At the beginning of the novel, after Murdoch saves a little kid from being beaten by his father, his date's only concern is that there might have been a fight where she might have gotten hurt, and that might have ruined their date.
• Karma Houdini: Deconstructed — Matthew wants to kill his physically and emotionally abusive mother, especially after she kidnapped his little sister. Instead, he lets her be. But she can no longer have custody over her children and can't return home out of fear of being thrown into jail for kidnapping. From time to time, she still sends letters to her children, sometimes warm, sometimes threatening, but she has no power over their lives anymore. She can live her own life however she wants, flirty and irresponsible, but as Matthew noted, she is getting older and harsh reality is catching up to her. One of her favorite tactics is using her beauty to seduce random men into doing what she wants, but as she ages, she's going to find it harder to do that.
• Kick the Dog: Nikki hits Matthew in the face with a bag of mussels when she thinks he doesn't appreciate that she worked hard to cook an elaborate meal of paella for him and his sisters.
• Mask of Sanity: When she's dating Murdoch, Nikki is able to pretend to be a loving mother and girlfriend, but not forever. He starts realizing how crazy she is when the family is at the beach and she dangles Emmy by her ankles over some sharp rocks.
  There were cracks in her behavior, times when her true self would seep through the veneer of warmth and merriment like water into a basement. I watched Murdoch to see if he would notice. To see if he would understand what he saw.
• Mood-Swinger: Nikki can go from loving mother to Ax-Crazy psychopath and back at the drop of a hat. After Murdoch breaks up with her, she takes Matthew, Callie and Emmy out for a family fun day at IHOP and Six Flags to prove she's a better parent than him, then on the car ride home, decides they haven't been grateful enough and drives the car into oncoming traffic until they scream that they love her.
• Mrs. Hypothetical: A variation of the trope occurs when Matthew finds a piece of paper Callie's written on with the names of their family with "McIlvane" (Murdoch's last name) after them, expressing her hope that Nikki will marry Murdoch and the family will be happy forever. Then, he sees that she's written several variations of "Callie McIlvane," and finally in shaky letters, "Dr. Callie McIlvane." He's unnerved by it, because he thinks her hopes are getting too high, and life with Nikki has taught them to always be wary of disaster striking.
• Never My Fault: Nikki abuses her children for their entire lives, harasses Murdoch after he breaks up with her, hits Julie with her car, and generally makes life hell for her entire family after losing custody of her children. Yet, when Matthew and Murdoch show up to rescue Emmy after she's been kidnapped by Nikki and forced to drink so much alcohol that the poisoning nearly kills her, Nikki can only hysterically scream at Murdoch and blame him for the mess her life has become. Murdoch has no rebuttal and simply tells her to leave the state and never return if she doesn't want to go to jail.
• Psycho Knife Nut: When Matthew was little, Nikki once held a big kitchen knife to his neck for stealing a cookie from the kitchen.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Nikki is a grown woman in her thirties with three children who has no impulse control or ability to think things through before she does them, never takes responsibility for her worst actions, and throws destructive tantrums when she feels she has been wronged or doesn't get what she wants.
• Really Gets Around: A PG-13(ish) version — while sex is never mentioned explicitly, it's pretty obvious what Nikki is doing when she brings strange men home and goes out to bars to seduce them into doing her bidding. Plus, she has three children from two different fathers.
• Rule of Symbolism: Murdoch works as a home building and improvement contractor; he loves fixing broken-down houses. He's pretty good at fixing people, too.
• Self-Made Orphan: Murdoch killed his abusive father at thirteen. It is for this reason that he stops Matthew from doing the same to Nikki. Although Matthew isn't sure Murdoch should have stopped him, Murdoch doesn't regret doing so.
• The Sociopath: Nikki ticks all the boxes of a low-functioning one; she's superficially charming, is capable of hiding her worst traits under a Mask of Sanity, has a total Lack of Empathy even for her own family, was cruel even as a child, has a major reckless streak, and harbors no remorse for any of the terrible things she's done.
• So Proud of You: How Matthew feels when he sees Emmy pray to God that she hopes Murdoch is safe and wants him to know she loves him, right in front of Nikki (who has recently become Murdoch's Psycho Ex-Girlfriend).
  You peeked up from your hands at Nikki, half scared, half delighted, all determined. And for the first time, I realized that one day, you might be a formidable woman. If you could stay safe now. Now and the next ten years.
• Traumatic Haircut: One time, when Nikki was angry that her own hair was less than a full yard long, she impulsively cut almost all of Callie's hair off to "show her how important hair was to a woman". For the rest of that summer, Callie wore baseball caps to hide the bald patches in her hair.
• Walking the Earth: After being caught kidnapping Emmy, Nikki is ordered by Murdoch to leave Massachusetts and never return if she doesn't want to go to jail. She spends the next two years drifting around the United States, living her life how she wants — sleeping with random men, doing drugs, and who knows what else. But every now and then, Matthew and Callie get letters from her. (Some are addressed to Emmy, but her older siblings make sure she never sees them.) Some of them are loving messages asking the children about their lives, telling them to dress warmly in the winter and eat their vegetables, while some of them are angry rants blaming Matthew and Murdoch (but never Callie, Emmy, Ben, or Bobbie) for how her life turned out, threatening to kill them and herself.
• Wants a Prize for Basic Decency: Nikki accuses her children of being ungrateful if they don't thank her for doing the things a mom is supposed to do — that is, things like make them dinner and take them out to restaurants and amusement parks.
• You Are Fat: Nikki's favorite way to insult her sister Bobbie is to make fun of her weight. When Bobbie tries to welcome her home for Christmas dinner after she comes home from jail:
  Nikki: If you really cared about me, you'd have come to pick me up tonight. You can just eat your big dinner yourself. We both know that's what you want anyway.