Sibling bonds are often described as built-in best friendships, full of loyalty and lifelong love. But for Nicole Killian, author of You Can’t Count On Me: A Memoir of Unreliability, those bonds were forged in something much more volatile: survival.

In her honest, emotionally complex, and darkly funny memoir, Nicole offers a raw portrait of what it really means to grow up alongside siblings in a household marked by instability, neglect, and trauma. These weren’t fairy tale relationships. There were no matching pajamas or heartfelt birthday cards. What Nicole and her sisters had was far messier and, in many ways, more real.

From early childhood, Nicole’s life was filled with chaos. Frequent moves, unreliable adults, substance abuse, and ever-changing family dynamics made the idea of normal feel like a distant dream. In the absence of dependable authority figures, she and her sisters often turned to one another, but not always in ways that looked like love.

There were fights, power struggles, resentment, and moments of betrayal. There was jealousy toward her younger sister, Lucy, who seemed to get what Nicole never could: attention, affection, and a freer pass. There were scuffles that turned into injuries and games that spiraled into chaos. But underneath it all was a shared understanding: no one else would ever quite know what it was like to grow up this way.

You Can’t Count On Me doesn’t romanticize these sisterly relationships. Instead, Killian examines them through the dual lenses of humor and hindsight. She recounts memories that will make readers laugh, like tying a sister to a chair for a science experiment and ones that sting, such as moments of misplaced blame or the desperate guilt of not being able to protect a sibling from harm.

Through it all, Nicole brings a deep empathy to her storytelling, acknowledging that her sisters were also just kids doing their best to survive a world they didn’t ask for.

Over time, those bonds evolved. The rivalry softened. The misunderstandings gained clarity. And the love that was always buried beneath the noise began to surface more openly. Forgiveness didn’t come in a grand moment. It came in small acts of grace: a phone call, a shared memory, a laugh that healed something neither of them could name.

In telling these stories, Nicole reflects on how sibling relationships can shape one’s identity, especially in traumatic environments. Her sisters were her mirrors, her challengers, her co-survivors. They were the witnesses to her pain and the participants in her chaos. And eventually, they became part of her healing.

The book is a tribute to the author’s resilience and the complicated, unshakable bonds of sisterhood. It’s for anyone who has both loved and resented a sibling. For those who have hurt and been hurt by someone, they also can’t imagine life without. And for those who are learning that forgiveness is not forgetting, it’s remembering with compassion.

If you’ve ever wrestled with sibling relationships shaped by trauma, this memoir will meet you where you are, with honesty, laughter, and hard-earned hope. Read You Can’t Count On Me: A Memoir of Unreliability by Nicole Killian and see what it means to survive, heal, and love.