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3.71 AVERAGE
3.71 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
I know that everyone has read and loved Stephanie Land’s MAID or watched the Netflix adaptation (and if you haven’t, you need to get on that) — and I’ve got good news! Land’s second memoir, CLASS, a continuation of what happens after MAID ends comes out on November 7 and is an enthralling adventure that continues @stepville’s story as she works towards higher education.
Land is an extraordinary writer and speaks to the challenges of poverty, single parenthood, and more in a way that resonates deeply. Do yourself a favor and add this this one to your TBR right now.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ — really enjoyed it
Thanks to Atria for the advanced copy!
Land is an extraordinary writer and speaks to the challenges of poverty, single parenthood, and more in a way that resonates deeply. Do yourself a favor and add this this one to your TBR right now.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ — really enjoyed it
Thanks to Atria for the advanced copy!
I truly appreciated the authors first book Maid that walked us through her struggles of being a single parent struggling with emotional and physical abuse and trying to survive. So I was excited to receive her next book Class that continues her journey from the publisher and to hear it’s the Good Morning America book pick!
Class continues the authors journey she is now thirty five and she has moved to Montana with her daughter so she can go to college and get her English degree. We are taken on Stephanie’s journey as she is attending school to get her BA in English, she relays her challenges and complications that go with single parenting, low income, and juggling work with a school schedule for both her and her daughter. I truly appreciated her brutal honesty and she doesn’t try to portray herself as a perfect mom but a woman trying to survive in a system that looks down and judges her. It honesty amazes me that one small thing can literally take food from her and her daughters mouth. The government preaches they want people to work and make a life for themselves, yet they turn up their noses when a person wants to go to school to make a better life for themselves , and if they are a single parent they aren’t willing to help but call them lazy if they don’t work full time.
This book shows you that if you ever have a dream of a better life, and are willing to have motherhood and education and dream of a better future for you and your family you deserve and just because your living at the poverty line your are still allowed to have hopes and dreams,! This book is yet another story of how flawed are government system is and that it still needs major work. The story is emotional and really kept me turning the pages and I finished the book in two days, I truly appreciate Stephanie Land sharing her story with us.
Class continues the authors journey she is now thirty five and she has moved to Montana with her daughter so she can go to college and get her English degree. We are taken on Stephanie’s journey as she is attending school to get her BA in English, she relays her challenges and complications that go with single parenting, low income, and juggling work with a school schedule for both her and her daughter. I truly appreciated her brutal honesty and she doesn’t try to portray herself as a perfect mom but a woman trying to survive in a system that looks down and judges her. It honesty amazes me that one small thing can literally take food from her and her daughters mouth. The government preaches they want people to work and make a life for themselves, yet they turn up their noses when a person wants to go to school to make a better life for themselves , and if they are a single parent they aren’t willing to help but call them lazy if they don’t work full time.
This book shows you that if you ever have a dream of a better life, and are willing to have motherhood and education and dream of a better future for you and your family you deserve and just because your living at the poverty line your are still allowed to have hopes and dreams,! This book is yet another story of how flawed are government system is and that it still needs major work. The story is emotional and really kept me turning the pages and I finished the book in two days, I truly appreciate Stephanie Land sharing her story with us.
Stephanie Land’s writing is absolutely incredible. It’s assertive and smart, raw and relentless, honest. She’s not precious about her experiences, but she clearly understands the power of sharing story. I can’t wait to see what she does next.
Ooof, I wondered if i would finish this book.
The story is inspiring, I get it. But I think a big difference between my reaction to this book and my reaction to Educated (which I loved) is that yes already the cards were stacked against her and yes, that’s important to understand and acknowledge. But I just could not get behind her choice to have another baby at the time that she did. That’s when she really lost me. Did it all work out for her? Sure. But is this an unlikely scenario for most people in her circumstance? Yes. And yes. Wanting the baby and keeping it is ultimately her choice, but man I could not see how that was helping her already difficult situation.
And again, what I heard (all the reasons she wasn’t on birth control and didn’t use a condoms) felt like excuses for carelessness.
Eek.
The story is inspiring, I get it. But I think a big difference between my reaction to this book and my reaction to Educated (which I loved) is that yes already the cards were stacked against her and yes, that’s important to understand and acknowledge. But I just could not get behind her choice to have another baby at the time that she did. That’s when she really lost me. Did it all work out for her? Sure. But is this an unlikely scenario for most people in her circumstance? Yes. And yes. Wanting the baby and keeping it is ultimately her choice, but man I could not see how that was helping her already difficult situation.
And again, what I heard (all the reasons she wasn’t on birth control and didn’t use a condoms) felt like excuses for carelessness.
Eek.
I hadn't read Maid though I watched the Netflix miniseries so I was tentatively ready to dive in. The first 50 pages were okay and then it rapidly went downhill. It is hard for me to understand someone writing about how hard their life is and then making choices to only make it harder.
This was a great follow-up to Maid. It picked up right where Maid left off and filled in the next several years worth of stories from Land's experience as a single mother, struggling to deal with the system and society while also working to better herself and her life for her family. It detailed all of the painful and often not discussed situations of dealing with the system and choices that had to be made for herself and her family to keep them moving forward.
It is a courageous and vulnerable and real story and one I'd love to hear the happily ever after of if she ever decides to write it. Props to her for being willing enough to share her story in the most public way of all to shed light on those who find themselves in her same position more often than people realize.
It is a courageous and vulnerable and real story and one I'd love to hear the happily ever after of if she ever decides to write it. Props to her for being willing enough to share her story in the most public way of all to shed light on those who find themselves in her same position more often than people realize.
I didn’t love this book as much as her first memoir. The first 3/4 of the book were a little slow for me, as you can tell by how long it took me to read this one. But the last quarter got very good, and I felt like it ended just as it got to part of her life that I really wanted to hear more about. I’m hopeful she’ll write a third book.
I read "Maid" and had some pretty strong feelings about it. I wanted to give this a chance to see where things had progressed from the first storyline.
This book could just as easily have been called "entitlement". The vast majority of this book is Land making decisions to further herself (which is great - I applaud that), but then being mad that the rest of the world isn't catering to her whims.
Are some things that happen fucked up? Absolutely. But is he saying things like "I have no patience for people not showing up for me" ok when she doesn't share anything in this book at all other than her asking asking asking? Absolutely not.
I get it, it's her perspective. Desperation is a tunnel, and you can only see what you have time for. But there could have been so much more time spent exploring that versus making people feel like they didn't do enough for her. Not everyone's story is for everyone, but man, she sure does make it really hard to feel like she's not doing a lot of this shit to herself.
This book could just as easily have been called "entitlement". The vast majority of this book is Land making decisions to further herself (which is great - I applaud that), but then being mad that the rest of the world isn't catering to her whims.
Are some things that happen fucked up? Absolutely. But is he saying things like "I have no patience for people not showing up for me" ok when she doesn't share anything in this book at all other than her asking asking asking? Absolutely not.
I get it, it's her perspective. Desperation is a tunnel, and you can only see what you have time for. But there could have been so much more time spent exploring that versus making people feel like they didn't do enough for her. Not everyone's story is for everyone, but man, she sure does make it really hard to feel like she's not doing a lot of this shit to herself.
Stephanie Land lowkey makes me want to go back to school for creative nonfiction because this book is SO good and so many of my favorite books this year have been memoirs. Land’s voice is incredibly strong in this work, which makes it very compelling. Story-wise, this is not just the story of a poor mother sacrificing everything for her child, it is also the story of a woman learning to trust herself, the story of a family being built, the story of an artist and athlete pursuing the passion of her craft. Relying on extremely specific detail of select moments in her life was a very effective method to build reader’s emotional connection while surveying a large portion of time. Overall, Land gave readers an inspiring journey through poverty while also offering serious criticisms of the systems that create it, which I admired a lot.