Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.71 AVERAGE
3.71 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
funny
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
This book is one that everyone who lives here in America should read. As someone who has needed to use the system this is such a good explanation of how it works. I hope Land continues to write from experience - I'll keep reading!
I wish I could give this more than five stars. I love Stephanie’s honesty about what her life was really like. She doesn’t romanticize her struggles, or pity herself, or try to maintain false positivity. She just tells it like it is. I appreciate the way she calls out the ridiculous expectations that are put on people who are living in poverty. I was confronted by my own biases and also saw some of myself in her despite having completely different life experiences. I have read other reviews that wish she would’ve included more personal reflection on her experiences. That’s a totally different book and I hope she writes it someday. I’ll gladly read that one, too.
I’m an obscene fangirl of Katie Gatti Tassin (Money with Katie podcaster). In her episode about the persistence of poverty in America despite being one of the richest countries, she made several references to this memoir. OF COURSE, I added it to my must-reads as I do with all MWK recommendations (still patiently waiting for Poverty, By America written by Matthew Desmond, who was an amazing Armchair Expert guest btw). If you peruse the reviews, you can see some of the author’s choices irked many people, who felt these said decisions were reasons why the author deserved to be trapped in poverty. Overall, this one will challenge your worldview. Poignant yet thought-provoking.
emotional
informative
medium-paced
This is the story of my life. Being poor is exhausting and expensive. People don’t really realize that. This book was giving me anxiety because I literally gone through all the same things she has.
I think it could have been stronger with some details, but ultimately it's her memoir and she gets to decide. I can verify through experience and the experience of friends that getting and maintaining government benefits is basically a full-time job and also largely dehumanizing. And traditional degree programs are very difficult for students who are parents. The strongest parts of this book are the ones that speak directly to those difficulties. Ultimately though I think most readers will see Land as a friend who might not make the choices we think we would, but we're still rooting for her and hoping for the best.
medium-paced
Thank you, NetGalley, for providing an advance copy for review. I was excited to see this book after having read Maid. I was not disappointed. I appreciate Land's honesty and believe she is an inspiration to others.
I can only hear about dropping her daughter off with strange men so many times.
Such a heart-wrenching memoir. Working in higher education and being a student, poverty is the elephant in the room. Land puts into words the feelings and thoughts I had during my undergrad. So good.
Ugh. This follow-up memoir is just not good. In a lot of places it's written like a stream of consciousness about absolutely nothing? It feels like she just writes every minute detail of her days and recites it to us. There are some great insights into what it is like to attend college below the poverty line, as a single mother and a decade older than most students. Particularly interesting was how our system actually discouraged her from attending college in favor of solely earning money to support her child; but Land wants to claw and fight her way out of minimum wage jobs and government assistance. The food insecurity piece was enlightening and I would have liked to see more on that topic. But this was just not written well, was not cohesive and needed a lot more structure.