A review by gabizago
Hill Women: Finding Family and a Way Forward in the Appalachian Mountains by Cassie Chambers

5.0

I think it is impossible to read this memoir and not try to compare to Educated. Though they both show the struggles of a woman coming from a background of poverty that ended up thriving and getting elite education, the comparisons might end right there. Cassie talks about the powerful women from the Appalachia - that stay there maybe because they don't even know something else exists outside. And how they survive and raise generation over generation of other men and women, that will also stay there and help get the region growing, or leave to get a better education. Cassie chose an intermediate path - she left to study (and even went to Yale Law School), but chose to come back to give back and help other hill women in their law struggles. Overall, it is a nice read, that is not trying to show the Appalachia is worse or better than anything, but just portray how it actually feels like growing up in those mountains.