Rating: 
Summary: this book changed my life
Review: I had never before read such truth and honesty about growing up in a home with a damaged sibling. I spent my entire childhood and teen years caretaking a severely disabled sibling--violent, abusive, stronger and bigger than me. I was a teen girl told by my parents it would make me "stronger" to have to face this. Safer does not write off the disabled as 'obnoxious' rather, she addresses the hard truth: that society today willfully and blindly ignores the damage done by not acknowledging how difficult it is to grow up in these circumstances. Future books may do this more deeply or differently, but this is a groundbreaking work and deserves attention.
Rating: 
Summary: A new class of "victim"
Review: I saw this book being reviewed on "Good Morning America" and bought it later that day. I'm sorry I did. This book is very dangerous, in my opinion bercause it lumps the bratty and obnoxious with the disabled and mentally ill. The sibling relationship is incredibly subtle and complex, but I wouldn't classify a normative standard to judge the relationships by. Her description of the "Caliban Syndrome" is another attempt be the psychoanalytic community to create another conflict within the family. This book treats siblings as people to be pitied for their life experiences growing up with a brother or sister who has posed challenges for their family. Where's the reciprocity here? Is it hard for a "damaged" sibling to grow up with a "normal" one? Maybe her brother was traumatized by her! There is little in this book that reflects general academic writing on sibling relationships, either. There are a few references to psychoanalytic journals, but that's about it. This book should NOT be taken as a way of thinking about sibling relationships in special needs families. There are many (probably most) families out there with sibs with special needs who don't feel particularly influenced by "The Caliban Syndrome." Finally, why the author chooses to lump the disabled with the difficult is beyond my comprehension. The disabled person cannot help being disabled. It's insulting to people with disabilties to be lumped into this category. At one point, she makes a reference that "normal" siblings would benefit from institutionalization of disabled siblings. Are we in the 21st century yet? This is not the trend in housing for the disabled by a long shot in most states. As far as caregiving burden goes, there are out of home placements that can be mutually beneficial to all parties involved. Having a sibling with a disability is not a sentence for a life of misery and drudgery. Where's the love in this book? Don't buy it. Learn from me.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointed with this book
Review: I was very disappointed in the contents of this book. My point of view is of the parent of an individual with developmental disabilities and an individual without disabilities.
There was not a single reference to any positive family reactions, situations or experiences for non-diabled siblings. It seems almost impossible that the author could not find one sibling to relate a positive experience. I felt as it she sought out the most disturbing family situations for her book.
I personally cannot fathom how a parent could concoct some of the horrible actions they took such as placing the wet/soiled sheets of one child on the bed of another so the child with a disability would not look bad. The parent so described had a real problem herself and therefore the difficulties in the family cannot be blamed entirely on the presence of a child with a disability.
Another issue which I feel was reported without researching current practices was that of guardianship of the person with a disability. Ms. Safer states that guardianship could "imperil the desinated guardian's ...survival." Guardianship generally means that the guardian assists the person with the disability in making decisions about medical issues, where to live, etc. What a ridiculous assumption that taking a few hours a week to talk to agency staff or your own sibling would imperil anything!
The author's parents obviously created a dysfuntional family, however many families of individuals with disabilities are surviving and living without all the negative consequences on which the author focused.
Rating: 
Summary: An important introductory read for so-called Normal Ones
Review: I was weak with relief when I read Safer's book; finally someone put into words what I've been feeling all my life. I have two older brothers, one borderline and drug-addicted, the other severely emotionally damaged and physically violent from early childhood. I remember envisioning myself at the age of 10 as walking behind my family with a broom to sweep up all the dirt left behind by my brothers' actions. The pressure to be perfect to offset their flaws was incredible. As the only girl I'd always had more expected of me and thought that it was due to generational sexism on the part of my parents; Safer led me to consider the possibility that it was partly because I was my parents' last hope.
What I wish Safer had included more of was a discussion of the rage that abused normals feel. My violent brother terrorized and brutalized me; many years later, I still feel a great deal of hatred toward him. Yet Safer's focus on guilt (her own brother never hurt her, so she doesn't feel residual rage toward him) made me feel somehow dirty that my guilt is matched by equal -- no, MORE powerful -- feelings of rage. I wish too that Safer had acknowledged that sometimes parents, in an effort to blame their damaged child(ren)'s defects on something, anything, will overtly blame the good child for somehow robbing their damaged sibling(s) of health and wellbeing. This happened to me; thus I grew up knowing that I had to succeed to save the family name (a phrase my mother tossed around liberally), yet at the same time every success was held against me as an act of thievery against my brothers.
I agree with the other reviewer who said the book is a good start, but not enough. It could have been twice as long, with much more detail paid to the different varieties of the Caliban Syndrome. Surely the syndrome must vary, as the disabilities of the damaged sibling(s) vary. For instance, emotional disabilities often render children difficult to be around. Contrast this with a sweet, benign child confined to a wheelchair. The latter might be deemed a hero; the former usually aren't. No one mistook my siblings for heroes, so I've never experienced the particular frustration of resenting a sibling everyone else thinks is an angel incarnate. On the other hand, I dealt with violent abuse. My point is that Safer has introduced a concept (the Caliban Syndrome) that, in its attempt to be all-inclusive, glosses over important differences in normal children's experiences that result from differences in the nature of their sibling's damage. At the end of the day, though, it's clear that I'm praising Safer with faint damnation. She had something important to say, something that resonated bigtime with me and others, and now I (we) want more. That should be good news for any author.
Rating:
Summary: A waste of time!
Review: I wish I had "listened" to the one star reviews of this book. I agree completely with all of them. I found the author to be completely obnoxious in terms of her clear disdain towards her essentially "fat slob jerk" older brother, and equally obnoxious to compare a "fat slob jerk" sibling to a sibling that's truly mentally or physically disabled. My favorite moment is when she is with an unmarried patient(I guess a "normal")who is having some difficulties with dealing with the holiday's, and she magnanimously liberates her from those feelings by asking her "Does it bother you that my life is so much better than yours?" or something to that effect. This gives you a taste of the level of self-centeredness that permeates the book.
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Summary: Psychology of siblings
Review: I've met lots of people who felt detached from their siblings. One Army captain, assigned to the Military Police, told me he never sees his brothers because they're in jail or on welfare. A quiet librarian can't relate to his brother, an outgoing car salesman. But this book is not about dealing with the merely dysfunctional sibling -- the sister who ran off and got pregnant and hits you up for money or the brother who disapproves of your lifestyle. This book deals with really serious mental illness in families. As the author claims, often family live centers on the damaged child, while the "normal" sibling gets ignored. Safer's major contribution is to show the way sibling relationships pervade our lives, even unconsciously. A woman feels guilty when she experiences success, while her sibling begs in front of the church they used to attend as children. The siblings always exist in shadows. And Safer also tells us how little research has been conducted on sibling relationships. Even as a therapist, she had to carve her own path with few guidelines. While I usually enjoy books with many narrative tales, I began to get a sense of repetition as I read this one. People felt guilty. They wondered how much they had to give. Often they felt relief when they gave up. As other reviewers pointed out, Safer offers few stories of successful sibling relationships. Mothers write proudly of their experiences with disabled children. Read, for instance, Martha Beck's book, Expecting Adam. Perhaps some children look back with gratitude on their experiences of growing up with a disabled sibling. In the movie, There's Something About Mary, the heroine visits her disabled brother on a regular basis. Is that realistic? Then again, a parent chooses to have a child, and parents have the maturity and experience to gain perspective. A good book, which raises our awareness of a common concern that's poorly understood.
Rating:
Summary: Cathartic
Review: It was cathartic to read the words that I've kept suppressed and never even dared to think. But there it was in black and white and I no longer deny their existence, hence, I start to exist again because suddenly I have that right. Oh sure I still "happily" care for my older handicapped sister with no voice of complaints to my family and the various social workers, and besides, I am very good at it as well as highly competent. But we are human, cut us and we will bleed. I highly recommend this book to parents of disabled/difficult children. It will serve as an early warning to them on the emotional damage of casting their normal children as "chosen" andd/or "invisible." By allowing the difficult and the damaged to violate the rights of the normal ones, they are teaching their normal children that they do not matter and are less of a value to them and eventually, to society. This book was a relief to me, though it might be too painful to the parents and put them into further denial. We do the best we can and I will always admire my parents and the strong foundation they left for me to continue the care of my sister. By being caste as the "normal one", we are not allowed to be part of normal society.
Rating:
Summary: Cathartic
Review: It was cathartic to read the words that I've kept suppressed and never even dared to think. But there it was in black and white and I no longer deny their existence, hence, I start to exist again because suddenly I have that right. Oh sure I still "happily" care for my older handicapped sister with no voice of complaints to my family and the various social workers, and besides, I am very good at it as well as highly competent. But we are human, cut us and we will bleed. I highly recommend this book to parents of disabled/difficult children. It will serve as an early warning to them on the emotional damage of casting their normal children as "chosen" andd/or "invisible." By allowing the difficult and the damaged to violate the rights of the normal ones, they are teaching their normal children that they do not matter and are less of a value to them and eventually, to society. This book was a relief to me, though it might be too painful to the parents and put them into further denial. We do the best we can and I will always admire my parents and the strong foundation they left for me to continue the care of my sister. By being caste as the "normal one", we are not allowed to be part of normal society.
Rating: 
Summary: too few distinctions
Review: Like another reader, I found the lack of distinction between mentally ill and simply "obnoxious" siblings too reductive. Those of us with mentally ill sibs have a whole other set of problems to deal with -- including our fears for our own sanity and for our children. More specific books, such as "Mad House: Growing Up in the Shadow of Mentally Ill Siblings," address these family issues in much greater detail
Rating:
Summary: I wish there were more books like this
Review: This book fills a gap in the absence of texts relating to the relationship between mentally disabled and "normal" siblings. I have never seen any books besides this one that relates to my life with my highly disabled brother. Let me say that this book shows that relationships are not always happy or healthy or ones can ever be perfected. It openly demonstrates the anger, pain, shame or even ambivalence that families with MD people may feel. I personally felt that this book was cathartic, it allowed me to finally feel the anger and raw disdain that I have for my brother. I always felt guilty about it, and felt that I was the only person that had these feelings. Reading this book made me burst into tears because I finally had seen that other people had the same anger and confusion about their relatives that I feel. There is a habit for some people without MD people in their lives, to make them all good or happy with their families that rise to meet "challenges" they present. This is total fantasy in some cases and totally stereotypes our familial experiences Yes, there can be happy positive moments with MD people, but many times it produces a profoundly negative family life. I don't think that should be ignored or insulting the author because she admits that it's a reality. If you have had a MD sibling and have seen the problems that it creates in your family, then you should read this book. It is an honest account of what some people feel and how it affects their lives. Although this is an important and unique book, it does not present many viable options on how to resolve these conflicts. The book would have been much, much better if it would have had more resources to pull from. I hope that another book like this one can fill such a need. Also, it could have gone without the references to the Tempest, which didn't seem to add to the text.
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