The Birth Order Book

A while ago in my book club, we read The Weird Sisters. It's about three grown sisters who end up all moving back in with their parents. We got to discussing birth order and found it very interesting. I came across this book not long after and decided to read it.

Although Kevin Leman is the birth order guru, this book was hard to get through. I can't really put my finger on why though. It's not engaging. The information got old. Maybe it was just not what I expected. It reads more like an advice book in many ways, than an educational book on birth order. For example, when he talks about blended families he goes into counseling about the hardships, how to do it well, etc. Not just how birth order is affected. It was just too much parenting advice and not enough details on birth order.

There were also too many musings about his own family. He used too many examples of his own kids and his own experiences growing up.

While the book had chapters and seemed well organized, it really was all over the place. The subheadings within chapters were not cohesive, so I found it difficult to follow.

My last complaint is the lack of depth of a particular birth order I wanted to learn about - mine. I am the youngest of two girls by blood. My step-sisters didn't enter in until late childhood, so as Leman says, they don't really come into play in birth order. Unfortunately, while he gave a chapter to two children households, he didn't go into depth at all with the youngest of the two. I was disappointed.

Overall, I would not recommend this book.