I received an ARC through NetGalley.

I thought the premise of this book was great. However, it did not all come together for me. It seemed as though all of the issues were glossed over, and swept under a rug. The explanations given quickly at the end seemed thrown together without any substance. It just all seemed very strange to me, but I am looking forward to reading other books from this author.

There are parts of this book that are very interesting. I enjoyed Lane the columnist providing advice to others. I found this story to be slow and at times hard to get through. The thoughts and plot of the story were good and interesting. The execution of the story seem to be long and drawn-out. I don’t think it took as long as it did to get the substance of the matter.
Lane was a likable character. Her ability to provide advice to others yet struggled when it came to her own life rang true to me. Henry was an adorable little boy who was struggling with the loss of his father and with being uncomfortable in social settings. Henry was a bright little boy would mastered all of Lane’s family rules about moving. It is in his repeating of these rules to Lane that I believe causes her to take a deeper look at the situation.
This is Lane’s journey to find a path forward after husband unexpected death. It is compounded that Lane was planning to leave him is really unsure how to feel. Her focus is on her son Henry who has stopped talking to everyone but her. When things get tough Lane reverts back to her childhood and how her parents handled things, so she packs up to move. When the change does not provide any relief to the situation, Lane has to ask herself the very hard questions about her childhood. It is only through this journey with her sister and parents that Lane remembers her past and from an adult point of view is able to see the truth.

Rules for Moving follows Lane, advice columnist by day, unhappily wedded mother by night. When her husband dies in a sudden and tragic accident, Lane’s son, six year old Henry, inexplicably stops speaking to everyone but her. In the aftermath of the funeral, Lane must juggle her grieving son, a job on rocky ground, and a flood of memories dredged up by her complicated family. With only her sister as an ally (and a sporadic one at that), Lane struggles to be seen while drowning under the weight of this challenging reality. With a few helping hands from surprising sources, Lane and Henry try to navigate their normal normal.

In the beginning, this book was giving me Evvie Drake Starts Over vibes. But it quickly diverged, and at over four hundred pages, Rules for Moving ultimately dragged on for longer than I had hoped. I had difficulty connecting with Lane or Henry, and the slow reveal of family secrets and relational developments was poorly buttressed by a supporting cast that was equally lackluster. The hard hitting moments of grief and hopelessness didn’t land with quite as much impact as I imagine Star was hoping.

“You want to know who a person really is, watch how they treat someone who’s different.”

Still, I found the handling of Henry’s anxiety - his inability to speak - compassionate and raw. Being the parent of a special child is always a challenge, but I thought the entire book acted as something of a guidebook to parents encountering similar hurdles with their children. Lane’s ability to love her son and accept him despite her frustration with his silence is a welcome reminder that so much of parenting is patience and perspective.

In the end, while my interest was piqued by the plot, I was let down by how fully formed the characters weren’t, especially Lane’s landlord come friend Nathan, and the neighbors she meets while coming to grips with her family secrets. I thought the placement and purpose of these particular characters was a bit heavy-handed and detracted from the nuance the book had established in previous chapters.

I tend to rate my books by my likelihood to read them again. There are the books you keep for rereads, books you loan out and want back, books you loan out and don’t care about seeing again, and books you which get donated. This would be donation book for me!

Trigger warning for PTSD, childhood trauma, drowning, and domestic violence.

Lane Meckler, aka advice columnist 'Ask Roxie,' has all the answers for her readers, but readers would be surprised to know her own home life and family don't function well. With a philandering husband who drinks a lot, parents who are secretive and a past full of frequent moves, Lane wonders how she can give such popular advice.

After the unexpected death of her husband, she moves her son to a new home where he has difficulty making friends, particularly because he no longer speaks. The house has problems so she moves again. Her family, parents and sister, all join her and Lane decides to get to the bottom of all the family secrets.

"The Rules for Moving" was a wonderful, sad, sometimes funny read.

"Here's what I love. A blank slate. Waiting to be transformed. You see bare walls. I see a magical playroom."

Lane Meckler is Roxie, a professional advice columnist. She grew up moving around alot and is really antisocial.
Lane's husband is killed in a car accident and their son stops talking to everyone but her. She thinks a change will be good for them all.
You won't put this book down until the last page. Not anything like thought! I look forward to reading more from this wonderful author!

Thank you to publisher and NetGalley for the eARC

Thank you to the publisher and author for providing me with a digital ARC of this title via Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

I found this title to be mediocre. Nothing to really complain about, but neither can I really think about anything that I really liked about it. It was a nice story, with some interesting characters. I did like the background of the main character writing an advice column and how that plays in to her own life and feelings. I was confused by the relationship with her parents and this silent, helpless seeming uncle that lived with them. It was distracting to to the story- even though it does all wrap up and make sense in the end. I also was bothered by the treatment her young son received at school. It seemed harsh to have a teacher and principal act so harshly and uncaring towards a student. especially an innocent 6 year old. It was frustrating to me. Ok, I guess I do have a couple complaints but I did also think of a positive aspect of the story. I did like the friendship/romance between Lane and her landlord. I liked the move to the lake and the relationships formed there. The book was easy to read, but I found myself feeling underwhelmed at the end. ,

Thank you NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for the ARC

I really liked this story. I loved how the book truly captured the emotions and reactions of a child and why they reaction as they do.

This story is a eye opener as to how events can change an entire life in a moment.

Such a great book that deals with heartache, and family

I LOVED THIS BOOK!!! Oh my heart just broke so many times reading this gem. I could relate to this mother who is very antisocial. So misunderstood all the time. Her sweet son is one of those rare sensitive children who understands things that most kids don’t. I kept picturing him as the child from the movie The Switch! This is an author I will be watching.

I was so pleasantly surprised by this book. I had the advantage of going into it without really knowing anything about it and I would suggest doing that. It wasn't a twisty mystery but a well-written family dramady with quirky characters and unpredictable plot points- in other words, my favorite kind of book.
Lane is an advice column journalist who isn't a people person. She grew up moving a lot. Her son Henry is a mix of her introvert personality and his dad's fun-loving, social side. That's all I'm willing to say.
This book is for fans of The Lager Queen of Minnesota and Standard Deviation. It comes out in May 2020 and I hope you read it.
Thank you to Netgalley for the free, advance copy. I turned out lucky on this one.

Lane’s husband Aaron has died in a crash, his car crashed into another killing the occupants and the mystery woman in his car. Lane is now left to bring up their six year old son Henry and juggle her job writing Ask Roxie, an agony aunts column.

After Aaron’s funeral Henry stops talking to everybody except his mother. Lana decides that they should move from their apartment and rents a property from Nathan in New Jersey. Unfortunately the house has many flaws and needs a lot of repairs so Nathan offers her the rent of his other property in Martha’s Vineyard.

This is a moving story about grief and moving on. Lana has her own personal demons to work through as well as finding out why Henry has stopped talking. This is an emotional rollercoaster of a ride, Henry is such a sweet child and I did have a little weep when I found out why he hadn’t been speaking!!!

I’m looking forward to reading more of Nancy Star’s books.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy in exchange for a review.

Thank you to Lake Union Publishing and #netgalley for letting me read and review Rules for Moving by Nancy Star. Such a sweet and sad story with so many funny bits in between! Highly recommend!

Rules For Moving is a very well written and thought provoking story that captured my attention from the first chapter and had me reading way past my bedtime because I wanted to know what was going to happen!
My only complaint would be that some of the story lines are hard to understand, for example, why do Lane's parents behave so strangely? The way they treat Lane is very strange and I can't understand her responses.

With thanks to Netgalley and Lake Union Publishing for the complimentary advanced reader's copy.

Rules for Moving is a delightful, moving, touching story that almost had me in tears several times throughout the story..

Lane’s husband, Aaron, is killed in a car accident, leaving herself and her son, Henry, suddenly without the third member of their family. Lane believes her husband was drunk and on his way to see the woman with whom she thought he was having an affair, as he had stormed out of the house after one of their all too frequent fights; in fact, both Lane and Aaron were pretty sure the marriage was on the rocks. We find out differently towards the end, but my lips are sealed.

There are parallel yet intersecting story lines in this book. Professionally, Lane is an advice columnist (Ask Roxie) for the Guild, an amorphous organization that appears to be in the business of social media influence. After Aaron’s funeral, Henry mysteriously stops talking except at home, and then only to Lane. She asks to be allowed to work from home (never allowed at the Guild) so she can spend more time with Henry, whose silence continues until almost the end of the book.

Lane’s rental house is literally falling to pieces - not a day passes when some major system fails. Her landlord is embarrassed by the situation and bends over backwards to make things right.

The turning point comes when Lane’s mother suddenly arrives for a visit, with no explanation. The landlord invites them all to stay at his summer home on Martha’s Vineyard, and from there, eventually, all is resolved.

This is a story with a happy ending. There are a lot of interesting threads that wind up together. The Rules for Moving are literally Lane’s mother’s rules: the family moved a lot and she had rules for moving, packing, and she maintained her very self by a long set of intricate rules, rules that Lane did not impose on Henry. The fact that her rental home was falling apart is a metaphor for her own life, a life that is truly reconstructed and becomes strong and solid by the book’s end.

Nancy Star is a wonderful storyteller with a gift for description, dialogue, and uncovering the true voice of her characters. Henry, around whom much of the story revolves, is a delightful child, one who actually reminds me of me: I didn’t speak much in school until midway through college myself. Henry’s reason for silence turns out to be one of his grandmother’s rules. While I was a painfully shy child, his choice of silence certainly resonated with me.

Highly recommended. I look forward to reading more by Nancy Star. I received this book as an ARC from the publisher and NetGalley.

I really enjoyed this except at some places it felt too long and complicated. I especially liked the lead character, Lane, and even more than her, her son Henry. I used to teach elementary school, and this author has really captured the essence of a young child’s thought processes in a captivating and endearing way. I was confused at several different points about what was going on with Lane‘s family of origin… Her mother, father, and sister,… It was all explained in the end, but it felt to me like it took a little too long to get to that place of understanding for the reader.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and publisher for an advanced reading copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Interesting and well written. I would have liked more character development but was able to read the book and enjoy it without. The setting and story were similar to but not exactly the same as other books I've read. I found the main character to be likable. I didn't enjoy the ending because it seemed to me to be too rushed and too pat, as if the publisher or editor said "Okay, time to end this book NOW!" and proceeded to do just that.

Beautiful, tender, and moving. Such great insight into family dynamics and the mind of a child. This was my first read by Nancy Star, but I’ll definitely be looking up her other work.

Rules for Moving by Nancy Star is a stand-alone contemporary romance novel.
The story is told in a dual pov.
Meet Lane. She's an advice columnist, blogger, married withan adorable son. After a traumatic event, she decides to move and start over. Only that is quite not the best idea. The move brings back memories better not revealed. Her son stops speaking to everyone except her.
Both have a lot of healing to do.
Rules for Moving is a heart-wrenching touching read that gave me all the feels. The writing is excellent and I loved the characters and the storyline.

Rules of Moving was an interesting read, however I didn't really enjoy it that much. Even though there were times I wanted to put the book down, I still managed to finish it. The first half of the book was very slow, but thankfully it got more interesting towards the end. My favorite character was Lane Meckler's six year old son Henry. He went through some heavy stuff for someone his age. Lane is a bit of an anti-social person, but she was a great mom. She had a lot of patience with Henry, and even though she was still being affected by her past, she still did a great job raising Henry. I can't really blame Lane for turning out the way she did if you look at how she was raised.

Her relationship with her parents and sister was very weird and I couldn't really get a feel of what was going on. It felt very chaotic and not everything made sense. Her parents were very secretive and I had no idea why. It was very difficult for me to like Lane, I couldn't really connect with her. I still don't feel like I really know her. The change of pace in the last quarter felt refreshing and the new characters elevated the story. I especially enjoyed Henk's friendship with Nathan. I also liked seeing Lane grow as a person and finally be happy. I just wanted the change to happen a bit earlier in the story. Honestly, this book wasn't my cup of tea and that is probably why I didn't really like it that much. I do love the cover of this book and I think it fits the story really well.

Thank you to Lake Union Publishing (they never steer me wrong) and Net Galley for an e ARC of this title.in exchange for my honest review. I really loved this book. It started out in a way I didn't expect, but watching the path of advice columnist Lane Meckler go through grief that is messy...her husband, with whom she was about to separate, was killed. Her young son stops speaking to everyone but her. She decides to move, but that brings back many memories of moving multiple times when she was young and how that affected her.

Whew! A lot happened in this book. In Rules for Moving, Lane Meckler is an advice columnist with all of the answers for her readers, but when it comes to navigating issues in real life, she struggles. After being thrown a massive curve ball, she has to learn to help her six-year-old son, Henry, navigate through grief and change, especially after he stops speaking to anyone besides her.

The story is predominantly told from Lane's point of view, but there were a few endearing chapters in Henry's voice. Star expertly painted a picture of childhood anxiety and its negative ramifications. After the death of his father, Henry constantly worries that his mother is dead. His intuitive nature picks up on more of his mom's emotions than she think she lets on, but when misinterpreted, leads to even more angst. Throughout the entire novel, I wanted to pull him close and reassure him that everything would be okay.

I found several of the characters incredibly unlikable, and while I understand that people like that truly exist, it became slightly overwhelming as Lane and Henry encountered one after another. Also, Lane's entire family had deep-rooted issues that, while wrapped up at the end, didn't quite feel resolved, or even adequately addressed. Perhaps that was the author's intent, with the primary storyline was about Lane and Henry's path to healing. Overall, I truly enjoyed the novel and loved the bond between mother and son. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.