This review was originally posted on Ruby's Reads. 
 I went into The Rules with few expectations. As mentioned above, I hadn't read anything by Stacey Kade before-I hadn't even read any reviews of the series or, frankly, heard anything about it. Still, the description of The Rules was enough to pique my interest. I liked that it was SciFi rather than paranormal. And I hoped that would be enough to put an interesting spin on the "girl with a secret" storyline that is currently so prevalent in YA. 
 Reading it, there were some things I liked. I thought the premise had potential...I just wasn't impressed with the execution. Plus, I had issues with Ariane's decision to risk revealing her identity. Although the description suggests she does it in order to defend the weak, she really does it to get revenge on the school's mean girl. Perhaps my sense of self-preservation is over-developed, but that wouldn't be a good enough reason for me to risk capture. I also thought it lessened the stakes of what was, essentially, driving the story. 
 If my issues with Ariane weren't enough, I was also lukewarm about Zane. He's supposed to be a reformed Big Man on Campus, complete with a rep as a jock and a "cool" clique. At the beginning of the book, Zane is good friends with the mean girl that Ariane wants to teach a lesson. Due to personal tragedy, Zane has supposedly seen the error of his ways. I didn't buy it. If the mean girl was as mean as Kade painted her, and Zane went along with her shenanigans, he had a lot to make up for. Falling for a social nobody and regretting his actions wasn't enough of a reformation. And the mean girl? She was so mean as to be one-dimensional. I felt that way about a lot of characters-Zane's dad being another example. 
 The big question with any series is: did I like it enough to read the next book? Well, The Rules was a mediocre read for me. I didn't love it, but I didn't really feel enough to hate it, either. I didn't particularly connect with any of the characters and I read with minimal interest in the plot. When I got to the end, I set it aside and didn't think about it again until I picked up my (metaphorical) pen to write this review. So, I think I'll be skipping the next one.