Hush, Hush Rules and Order

At the beginning of the novel, Nora is pretty straight-laced. She does well in school and she checks in with her mom like she's supposed to. She seems like the kind of girl who stays out of trouble and obeys the rules.

In this same exchange, Nora mentions that she isn't allowed to go out on school nights, but Elliot rejects that idea. Trotting out the parent as an authority figure doesn't work in this case.

The detectives in the story are pretty useless. Police officers are often representatives of law and order, but in their interactions with Nora, they often seem skeptical, mildly antagonistic, accusatory, and clueless. Her interactions with the detectives indicate that when trouble strikes, she won't be able to depend on traditional authority figures for rescue.

Religion is often considered an authoritative institution. Here, Nora questions whether one of the symbols of religion, the Bible, is accurate. She doesn't just accept it as obvious truth. Vee responds in her typically irreverent fashion.

In this flashback, Dabria points out the world of angels/fallen angels also operates under a system of rules, albeit different ones than the human world. But this scene also makes it clear that we're enmeshed in a story of serious rule breakers. Jules, Patch, and Dabria all flout the rules to pursue their own interests and desires.

Unlike the straight-laced Nora from the beginning of the novel, middle-to-end-of-the-book Nora realizes she's caught up in a world where traditional rules do not apply. She knows she's not in Kansas anymore.

As Dabria did, Patch alludes to the rule system in heaven. In true Patch form, though, he has no problem taking matters into his own hands, busting out a bit of vigilante justice.

Using the school as the background for the climactic final fight reinforces the idea that conventionally safe places of rule and order, such as school, are no longer safe in this story. None of the rules of parents, law enforcement, or school can protect Nora from Jules.

Nope, he's not invisible, but what's really striking here is that Nora just spent the previous evening in a fierce battle, even dying for a while there. But forget all that: Here she is worried that her mom will find a boy in her room in the middle of the night.

This is pretty much all Detective Basso has to say when he comes to investigate the fire at the Greys' house. He asks a few half-hearted questions and then gives Nora and her mom the phone number to a good security system company. Really, detective? You weren't willing to believe Nora about the intruder earlier in the novel, but you are willing to buy the story that a psycho school psychologist ransacked a student's house looking for some unspecified item? He's making law enforcement in the book look kind of dense.