The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison || BOOK REVIEW

Book: The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving

Author: Jonathan Evison

Format: Audio Book

Goodreads Description

Overview

This book follows Benjamin Benjamin, a moddle aged man who ends up becoming the caregiver of Trevor, a 19 year old boy with MD.

The first half of this book shows the relationship that grows between Ben and Trev, the second half is a road trip that they go on.

Characters

The characters are very well done and have a great dynamic.

First we have Benjamin Benjamin, our leading man. Ben is a middle aged man going through a mid life crisis of sorts, albeit for good reason, who finds a job he ends up enjoying.

Then we have our other main character  Trevor. Trev is disabled but has a great personality. 

Peraonally, I don't have a great background knowledge of md but I felt like the character was written well.

The rest of the characters are primarily filler but they all have their own quirks and provides more depth to the story.

We meet some interesting characters throughout the road trip, but I'm not going to go into them to avoid spoilers. Overall these road trip characters make the second half of the book more interesting.

Things I liked

I really enjoyed the relationship of Ben and Trevor, it was more of a friend relationship than pure caregiver/client relationship. I enjoyed their banter and all of their daily tasks as well. 

Another aspect I enjoyed was the road trip itself. It was a fun ride and it made the book that much better. I'm not sure I would have loved the book as much if it didn't have this aspect. 

Things I disliked

I didn't like the way the flashbacks were handled. It was confusing each time we were back into the past since most of the time it was still in present day POV. I feel like that aspect may have been different and easier to pick up if I were physically reading it instead of listening to it. 

Conclusion

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! I don't know if I would read it again but it was a fun and slightly emotional read. I watched the Netflix movie adaptation right after finishing the book and while it was enjoyable as well, I feel like you definitely get more out of it if you read the book first.