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stephen11's review against another edition
5.0
What an important work! I give this book 5 GLOWING stars. The book tells the stories of multiple family's struggles with housing. I learned so much. I was so clueless. Shelter, a house, really is a fundamental basic necessity upon which a decent life can be built. And America has failed it's desperate citizens, once again failing in it's own myth of being a leading nation. Many other nations have some sort of universal housing coverage, all their people have shelter. Universal housing saves money that otherwise is spent in the judicial system, healthcare, and prison systems. When a populace has universal housing, many of it's desperate citizens can much more easily climb out of poverty and become productive members of society. I can see why this book won the Pulitzer and so many other awards. It is my best book of the year so far, probably going to be resonating with me for years to come, changing me like only a handful of books have done. If it's not clear yet, I recommend it highly. Read it. Or stay securely sheltered in the dark house of ignorance, shutting your eyes to the suffering of others.
canngrob's review against another edition
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Classism
Minor: Death, Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Domestic abuse, Mental illness, and Racism
kirsten0929's review against another edition
4.0
[2016; Pulitzer Prize winner] Thoroughly researched; really well written and presented; incredibly hard to read. A really important book for anyone who has had the good fortune to have never experienced this kind of poverty, has never lived with the daily threat of eviction, or has ever taken for granted the roof over his/her head. The epilogue, "Home and Hope", and the "About This Project" chapters were really valuable, and in hindsight I wish I'd read them first.
mce_reads's review against another edition
2.0
This book covers an important topic but it’s boring as hell. You probably could read the first 1/3 of the book and the epilogue and learn a lot.
timelapse's review against another edition
challenging
informative
sad
medium-paced
3.75
an excellent work of ethnography but the author’s faithfulness to recreating every detail of the subjects’ experiences left extended swaths of narration feeling utterly disconnected from meaningful sociological observations and honestly was so bleak it made me nauseous to read at times. the epilogue was great and made me glad i read through it but it should have come way earlier. i do think there also should have been more interspersing of personal narratives to illustrate greater flaws within the system. not nearly enough fanfare was given to the intricacy and sheer amount of research + narrative investigation that went into this book. the way desmond illustrated how nuisance property ordinances meant that women - especially black women - experiencing domestic violence were vulnerable in yet even more ways was some of the most meaningful and impactful parts of the book for me--but not every single anecdote in the book is as neatly tied in.