Sometimes breaking the rules means
risking everything.

The Alison Rules is about a girl who is struggling to get over the death of someone close to her, and her rules are an attempt to protect herself from life and all the horrible—and great, wonderful, scary—things it can throw your way. Alison and her best friends Laurie and Patrick do everything together, until Patrick falls for Alison, and everything gets really complicated. It's funny, sad, and above all, real.

“But…Laurie really likes you,” I said.

Patrick shrugged. This didn’t seem to surprise him. “Yeah, I know. And that’s nice, and I’m flattered, and we’re friends and we’ll stay friends. But that’s it. And that doesn’t have anything to do with me and you.”

“Yes, it does!” I said. “Because I’d never go out with you, because of her.”

“Why not?  That’s stupid, Alison. I can explain it to her—I’ll tell her how I feel,” Patrick said. “She might be upset at first, but she’d get over it.”  He got up from the sofa and walked over to me, and he perched on the arm of the chair where I was sitting. “It’s not like we’d be ruining her life.”

What You Might Not Know




Some of the things in this book are based on my life growing up

The name of our school paper was The Bridge, and yes, we did a joke issue once a year. Which was our best issue all year. It was called The Gap, not to be confused with the trend-o-matic clothes store.

In case you can’t picture western Mass.,
and who can, unless you’ve been there?