The Rules of Us, Jennifer Nissley
The Rules of Us, Jennifer Nissley
List: $25.00 | Sale: $17.50
Club: $12.50

The Rules of Us

Author: Jennifer Nissley

Narrator: Jessie Cannizzaro

Unabridged: 9 hr 24 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/09/2023


Synopsis

Come out. Break up. Stay friends? In this heartwarming queer love story about love of all kinds, exes navigate new crushes, new feelings, and a newly uncertain future after unexpectedly coming out to each other on prom night turns their lives—and their friendship—upside down. Can they figure out how to move on without losing each other?

Jillian and Henry are the kind of couple who do everything together. They take the same classes, have the same hobbies, and applied for the same super-competitive scholarship so they can go to the same dream college. They even come out as gay to each other on the same night, after junior prom, prompting a sudden breakup that threatens their intertwined identities and carefully designed future. Jillian knows the only way to keep everything on track is to approach their breakup with the same precision and planning as their scholarship application. They will still be “Jillian and Henry”—even if they’re broken up. 

Except they hadn’t planned on Henry meeting the boy of his dreams or Jillian obsessing over a cool girl at school. Jillian is desperate to hold on to her best friend when so much else is changing. But as she and Henry explore what—and who—they really want, it becomes harder to hold on to the careful definitions she has always lived her life by. Stuck somewhere between who she was with Henry and who she might be on her own, Jillian has to face what she can’t control and let go of the rules holding her back.

About The Author

Jennifer Nissley (she/her/hers) is also the author of The Mythic Koda Rose. Although her first love is writing, she is powerfully attracted to video games, horses, and pretty much any piece of clothing or interior design with an animal on it.She received an MFA in fiction from Stony Brook Southampton and lives in Queens with her spouse and doggo, but sadly no horses.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Shannon

This was an okay queer YA friends to lovers to friends story about two teens who come out to one another and try to be friends as they explore their sexuality. I'm usually a huge fan of books like this one but for some reason I didn't love the FMC and it all felt too back and forth/wishy washy. It j......more

The Rules of Us is an extremely unique lgbt coming of age story by Jennifer Nissley. Henry and Jillian are best friends and are dating. Then everything changes as they both come out to the other. Honestly, I wanted to love this story, as it had so much promise. But... the main characters repeatedly a......more

Goodreads review by Kelsey

3.25/5 stars! I think what I loved most about this book is that it showcases that friendship love is its own special kind of love. I think a lot of us with our 'high school sweethearts' realized that person was supposed to be our friend, not our lover. This book highlighted that perfectly. I really......more

4.5/5! Jennifer Nissley’s “The Rules of Us” follows the complicated relationship-turned-friendship of two queer teens figuring out what it means to be, newly-out, individuals and what that means for their future as friends. This is not your stereotypical YA queer coming of age story; I don’t even thin......more

Goodreads review by Cody

This was a weird one for me. I think where this fell short was I just did not like either character, and I didn’t care if either one of them succeeded. Jillian was just…annoying. Every move she made was to further what she wanted, and took very little consideration for Henry and what he needed. Once......more


Quotes

"A heartfelt journey into a teen’s emotional and internal evolution." —Kirkus Reviews

"Intense and emotionally raw first-person POV...with earnest nuance, making for a tender portrait of a girl on the cusp of adulthood." —Publisher's Weekly

"Urgent and vulnerable. This is a sensitive and compelling story of love, queerness, friendship, and self-discovery.” —Booklist