Thank you to NetGalley, Greystone Books and the author for an ARC of this book.

I was immediately interested in this book, as a current special education teacher that teaches students with moderate to severe disabilities and currently have multiple students with Down syndrome in my program. I am very aware of the pitiful options in the areas of housing, work programs and day programs available to individuals with disabilities after aging out of public school settings, so I was hooked from the premise.

That being said, this was the slowest of slow burns. I felt like I dragged myself through mud to finish this memoir. How many times can I read about the minutia of Rueben’s day where he didn’t want to eat, colored a picture and went on a walk. Each of these days constituted it’s own chapter, which felt completely unnecessary. A lot of what happened, or rather didn’t happen felt like it could have been better served summarized in weeks or a listed number of days.

There were a lot of tangents, flashbacks and jumps in the plot which were very distracting and unnecessary to the whole of the story. I feel like this could have used a heavy edit and could have stood lose a significant number of pages.

This is of course an important story, demonstrating the incredible need for better and safer options for individuals with disabilities, but I do feel like this message was lost in copious amount of redundancy which made up the majority of the book.

This book has my heart! I loved the perspectives and the raw emotions. Being a mother of a disabled child, this hit home. I laughed, I cried, I had to walk away for a moment for all the right reasons because it hit me so deeply in the feels. I cannot recommend this book enough! Thank you for the ARC opportunity!

This was a beautiful book. Made me cry, made me laugh. A well-written, heart-warming tale of brotherly love and life.
I feel lucky that I got the chance to read this book ahead of publication, and I will recommend it 100%..

*I received a copy of this book on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for this opportunity*

Tender and heartwarming, BROTHER DO YOU LOVE ME, gives the readers a glimpse into the lives of brothers Reuben and Manni. Manni, the legal guardian of his younger brother Reuben, receives a heartbreaking text asking “brother. do. you. love. me.” prompting a swift removal from Manni’s group home to in England to the quiet countryside. There, the two brothers fall into a domestic routine of mealtimes and walks in crisp winter air while Manni tries to tenderly restore Reuben’s broken spirit.

The amount of love woven into every word of the story is palpable, and is a beautiful monument to true brotherhood. Manni’s deep rooted love for his brother, his desire for Reuben’s happiness and fulfillment, is the core of this memoir– but Reuben is absolutely the heart.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.
What a heartwarming book. This relationship between these 2 brothers is amazing. The dedication Manni has to help Reuben to live his best life is endless. He and his family had to make some tough decisions but I feel like they did the best they could. I hope Reuben is thriving.

“brother. do. you. love. me.” drew me in when I read the description. The story itself is intriguing, I think it just took a lot of book to tell it. I was imagining more of a balance between Reuben’s drawings and Manny’s prose, but Manny’s voice came out so strongly in the book, it seemed imbalanced. That might be unavoidable in such a book I guess. I loved reading about their relationship, and history behind it, but likely won’t keep up with their trajectory.

It was heartbreaking to see that Reuben's life had go to the stage where he questioned Manni's live for him but heartwarming to see the family bond and support.