How to Be a Sister: A Love Story with a Twist of Autism by Eileen Garvin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
It’s true what the author says: there aren’t a whole heck of a lot of books, or even magazine or newspaper writings, about being a sibling to a person with autism or any disability. Most are by or about the person with autism or written from the parental point of view. For me, seeing what it’s like to live as the younger sister to someone with autism was interesting.
The way the author told this fairly straightforward story was different too. She would use the present to springboard back into the past then show how it affected her present desire and ability to have a relationship with her sister. Each chapter focussed on a different aspect of living with a sibling with autism and on how her sister’s autism affected herself and her family in that aspect. I liked the structure; I liked the idea of going back into the past then re-emerge into the present. But sometimes I got lost. The demarcation between past and present was not always clear to me. Perhaps a print book would’ve been a better format, as it’s easier to flip physical pages than virtual ones. It would’ve been easier to go back and reread the paragraphs that would clear up any confusion then flip back to where I’d left off. Other than that, it was a pleasant wander through the experiences of a sibling with a disabled sister.
