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A review by liralen
Hill Women: Finding Family and a Way Forward in the Appalachian Mountains by Cassie Chambers
4.0
You don’t go to Owsley County, Kentucky, without a reason. You can’t take a wrong turn and accidentally end up there. It’s miles to the nearest interstate, and there’s no hotel in town. It doesn’t cater to outsiders. (vii)
Chambers' family roots run deep in Owsley County: it's deep Appalachia, somewhere where opportunities are scarce and some houses still have dirt floors—but ingenuity and perseverance and pride make up for a lot. For Chambers and her family, more recent generations have gotten further away from the pull of Owsley County, but this is still something of an elegy to people—women, especially—who have persevered, and persevered, and persevered.
Sometimes outsiders come in and want to save Appalachia. It’s not a bad instinct—I can understand where it comes from. But outsiders who rush into the hills don’t always take the time to see that mountain people are a creative, resourceful lot. They don’t understand that Appalachians can be—should be—partners in the effort to make their lives better. They don’t grasp that, if given the right resources and opportunities, these communities are capable of saving themselves. If there’s one thing that women in these hills know how to do, it’s get things done. (48)
It's an answer to [b:Hillbilly Elegy|27161156|Hillbilly Elegy A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis|J.D. Vance|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1463569814l/27161156._SY75_.jpg|47200486]: more awareness of her own place in and out of it all, more understanding of what keeps people there by choice and of why she both 'got out' and chose to go back in. It reminds me in some ways of [b:Educated|35133922|Educated|Tara Westover|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1506026635l/35133922._SY75_.jpg|53814228] (though...without so much dysfunction), this sense of being outside the bounds of most of society. The book slows a bit in the middle, when Chambers is talking about more of her own education—relevant, but still something of a detour from her family story. I also found the way she talked about the difference between Wellesley and Yale quite sad: there's still a sense that she found Yale more worthy just because...because Yale thinks they're more worthy, basically, and it's full of people who come from money and privilege. (Wellesley also has plenty of people who come from money and privilege, of course, it's just that Yale sees that as more of a selling point.)
But at the end of the day: I'd absolutely recommend this for readers of Educated or [b:Two or Three Things I Know for Sure|91873|Two or Three Things I Know for Sure|Dorothy Allison|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347981818l/91873._SY75_.jpg|965422] (or as an alternative to Hillbilly Elegy).
Chambers' family roots run deep in Owsley County: it's deep Appalachia, somewhere where opportunities are scarce and some houses still have dirt floors—but ingenuity and perseverance and pride make up for a lot. For Chambers and her family, more recent generations have gotten further away from the pull of Owsley County, but this is still something of an elegy to people—women, especially—who have persevered, and persevered, and persevered.
Sometimes outsiders come in and want to save Appalachia. It’s not a bad instinct—I can understand where it comes from. But outsiders who rush into the hills don’t always take the time to see that mountain people are a creative, resourceful lot. They don’t understand that Appalachians can be—should be—partners in the effort to make their lives better. They don’t grasp that, if given the right resources and opportunities, these communities are capable of saving themselves. If there’s one thing that women in these hills know how to do, it’s get things done. (48)
It's an answer to [b:Hillbilly Elegy|27161156|Hillbilly Elegy A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis|J.D. Vance|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1463569814l/27161156._SY75_.jpg|47200486]: more awareness of her own place in and out of it all, more understanding of what keeps people there by choice and of why she both 'got out' and chose to go back in. It reminds me in some ways of [b:Educated|35133922|Educated|Tara Westover|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1506026635l/35133922._SY75_.jpg|53814228] (though...without so much dysfunction), this sense of being outside the bounds of most of society. The book slows a bit in the middle, when Chambers is talking about more of her own education—relevant, but still something of a detour from her family story. I also found the way she talked about the difference between Wellesley and Yale quite sad: there's still a sense that she found Yale more worthy just because...because Yale thinks they're more worthy, basically, and it's full of people who come from money and privilege. (Wellesley also has plenty of people who come from money and privilege, of course, it's just that Yale sees that as more of a selling point.)
But at the end of the day: I'd absolutely recommend this for readers of Educated or [b:Two or Three Things I Know for Sure|91873|Two or Three Things I Know for Sure|Dorothy Allison|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347981818l/91873._SY75_.jpg|965422] (or as an alternative to Hillbilly Elegy).