By Deborah M Foster

A Nonfiction, 2024 by D&D Publishing, 418 Pages

What I Didn’t Like:

Content warning: sexual assaults and lots of political opinions
Pieces of this story do not further the lesson the book is going for. While compelling, it sometimes makes you wonder if we forgot the point.
Unhighlighted here is the VAST difference between growing up poor in the Regan era, as this story tells, and growing up poor NOW. Many of the programs and opportunities this author says saved them no longer exist.
The middle of the book gets muddled and repetitive and the author recounts multiple instances of the same behavior via letter. Some of this could have been cut or combined and the point wouldn’t have suffered.

Storytelling style is compelling and keeps you interested. Although footnotes exist to remind you that this is a well-researched nonfiction, it reads like a fiction story many times with characters you can follow. That’s not a knock on the story at all, quite the opposite actually.
The footnotes show what a well researched account this is. Even though it is a first person account from someone who lived it, this author backed up those memories and comments with facts and data. It’s incredibly well done.
The author tells all the down and dirty details about growing up in a life of poverty and what that meant for her situation but she also manages to highlight a lot of overarching concepts in wonderful ways. She’s shining a light here as a first person example and it’s well written.

This could be important for a lot of readers: those wondering about poverty, planning to make laws about poverty, working with others in poverty, or just looking for the experiences of others.