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

3.0

The rebuttal/counterpoint to Hillbilly Elegy you could say, although this book doesn't exist, I don't think, solely because of that one. But certainly both books are part of the same conversation. Not a lot of ups and downs and bombast in this memoir, which I guess is why she wanted to tell the story of more of the average day-to-day of "Hill Country" and the challenges but also successes of those communities. If you're expecting a book with all the answers and they're answers that everyone will love and agree with, well, forget it. But Chambers is in there doing what she can to improve a place she came from, as opposed to going somewhere else and never looking back. As for the politics mentioned, well, getting into politics and government is one solution to problems and if that's what she did, then that's what she did. Overall, this is a useful and thought-provoking addition to the growing literature about these communities.

Author-narrators aren't always the best, even with their own lived experiences! But Chambers' narration is great here, too (and thank goodness the accents are authentic; a narrator who didn't grow up in this environment no doubt would have a leaned a little too heavily into the accent, and maybe even thrown three or four different parts of Hill Country in there).