When you see a book with the title Always Sisters: A Story of Loss and Love a lot can go through your mind, as I know it did for me. Which was mostly what we were to deal with in the case of death. Disease? Accident? An older sibling taking their own life? Not to mention, is this going to be a straight forward or a “sappy” read. For me that made the process of reading this book perhaps more interesting than the book itself.
I had found Saira Mir’s book via an online reader site (it is available for purchase or will be soon depending on when you’re reading this review). At first, I thought that I wouldn’t read it. But then I told myself to try it, after all those are usually the books that hit me the hardest. And it did hit hard, but not necessarily in a good way. But also, not in a bad way.
The narrator, Raya, talks about her younger brother, whom she mostly likes but sometimes he bothers her and does things to annoy her. So, she is very excited to learn that her mother is having a third child and it is going to be a girl. Raya has all these big (and frankly unrealistic) plans about how Baby Nura will act. They will be besties, Nura will love all the things Raya does, they will play the same games, sometimes they will let their brother join. However, after a doctor appointment, her parents inform her that Nura will not be coming home; and the family goes through their personal mourning period.
And this would have been fine except, here I am a (physical) adult and I was thinking that it sounded like the baby was born, but died, and not that there was a miscarriage or the pregnancy would be terminated. This was not “sitting right” and felt confusing. I was wondering how a child would react to this. However, I figured that since there are not a lot of books out there about the loss of a sibling, this was a good addition.
Also, the illustrations were an interesting addition. Shahrzad Maydani’s work is nice, sweet, and softens the loss, but also I was not sure I liked them completely. They become this dream-like backdrop with swirls, colors, busy details, and yet, realistic. They will be either a plus or minus to the reader, depending on your own biases, personal beliefs and how the book affects you. It is an experience book that I am glad I read, but know that I probably was not the intended audience.