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3.71 AVERAGE
3.71 AVERAGE
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
sad
fast-paced
Class is much more than a memoir. It’s a window into a broken welfare system that continuously lets its users down. Land bravely and candidly recounts her struggles of being a mother, keeping herself and daughter fed, clothed, and sheltered while working and going to college full time in order to better provide for her growing family in the future. There is a lot of swearing and detailed sexual encounters that don’t make this book a safe listen (without head phones) in the house with children). Land writes in a way that makes the reader feel like they’ve met her before and have seen her in their own community.
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
tense
medium-paced
challenging
emotional
sad
medium-paced
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Lets agree that we are not to judge another’s actions, especially as few of us have never been impulsive, mislead, needy, ignorant, or just plain stupid enough to have committed an act we would rather not anyone know about. And, if you did not come from a family that moved on with no care for you, and were abused, and faced hunger, and wondered where you would sleep at night, you can’t pass judgement on those who have.
If you ever had a dream of a better life, and sought to have motherhood and education and a better future, if you ever were lonely, hungry, scared, and depressed, if you have loved a child, if you stretched yourself so thin you were desperate for any affection, even a passing encounter, then you will understand.
I was a huge fan of Stephanie Land’s memoir Maid. Her new memoir takes up her story at university, much older than the other students, and hoping to go on to earn an MFA and fulfill her childhood dream of writing. While in school she must also work and care for her daughter.
If writing requires ruthlessness, Land is ruthless in exposing herself in this memoir. Nothing is held back. She shares her emotional rollercoaster as she struggles to meet her needs and her daughter’s needs, and the university’s demands, and the requirements set by law to receive child support from her daughter’s father, and loans for school, and governmental assistance programs.
And the assistant programs are not set up to help the needy but to cull out everyone possible. With the end of welfare, the system discourages higher education by requiring recipients to work.
Land never felt entitled. In fact, she felt guilty for choosing to get an education when she could be working. But we have been told that an education is the pathway to wealth and security. Land believed in that dream. Sadly, the system is not set up to support her.
Land was in her thirties while at school. She had friends with benefits, but no one who was willing to be involved with a woman with a child. When she became pregnant during her senior year, she wanted to have the baby, believing it to be her last chance. It is heartbreaking to read of her food insecurity while pregnant.
It was hard to put this book down. Land’s brutal honesty drew me in as she shared dreams, her needs, her love for her child and revealed the challenges of poverty in America.
Thanks to the publisher for a free book.
If you ever had a dream of a better life, and sought to have motherhood and education and a better future, if you ever were lonely, hungry, scared, and depressed, if you have loved a child, if you stretched yourself so thin you were desperate for any affection, even a passing encounter, then you will understand.
I was a huge fan of Stephanie Land’s memoir Maid. Her new memoir takes up her story at university, much older than the other students, and hoping to go on to earn an MFA and fulfill her childhood dream of writing. While in school she must also work and care for her daughter.
If writing requires ruthlessness, Land is ruthless in exposing herself in this memoir. Nothing is held back. She shares her emotional rollercoaster as she struggles to meet her needs and her daughter’s needs, and the university’s demands, and the requirements set by law to receive child support from her daughter’s father, and loans for school, and governmental assistance programs.
And the assistant programs are not set up to help the needy but to cull out everyone possible. With the end of welfare, the system discourages higher education by requiring recipients to work.
Land never felt entitled. In fact, she felt guilty for choosing to get an education when she could be working. But we have been told that an education is the pathway to wealth and security. Land believed in that dream. Sadly, the system is not set up to support her.
Land was in her thirties while at school. She had friends with benefits, but no one who was willing to be involved with a woman with a child. When she became pregnant during her senior year, she wanted to have the baby, believing it to be her last chance. It is heartbreaking to read of her food insecurity while pregnant.
It was hard to put this book down. Land’s brutal honesty drew me in as she shared dreams, her needs, her love for her child and revealed the challenges of poverty in America.
Thanks to the publisher for a free book.
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
medium-paced
This book was so good! I watched Maid on Netflix and then Read the book. Couldn’t wait to get on the list at the library for Class. I love her writing style and her story telling is so gripping. I’m sad it’s over!