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Hillbilly Elegy

a Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
May 01, 2019hinahusain rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
The one thing that really struck me about this book was how much the stories and accounts shared by JD Vance (a "hillbilly" American) sounded like stories you'd expect from immigrant communities and people living in the developing world. I guess that shows how much we don't know about what's going on in most American cities, and the poverty and struggle white working-class people face. The book was overall very good, though it did get a bit slow in the middle. I listened to the audiobook and am glad I did because if I had to read some of the slower sections, I may have lost interest in finishing the book. The book is basically a very personal account of the author's experiences and his insights about the lack of upward mobility in struggling American communities. One thing that was off for me in the book was a lack of emotional investment in the people the author talks about. I don't think this is a fault of the author or the way the book is written. I just didn't know JD Vance and couldn't get very emotionally tied to his story since I knew absolutely nothing about him prior to reading his memoir. I would encourage people to read this book because it has some very poignant insights about identity and how childhood experiences and situations outside our control shape us into who we are. It's also a somewhat humanizing account of the people we commonly refer to as "white trash" or "trailer trash". I think JD Vance is doing a service for his community by bringing to light the problems they face, though not all the issues are because of outside circumstances. I would have liked for him to talk more about the negative impacts of religion and the role it's playing in keeping a lot of people ignorant in these parts of the country (he touches upon it now and then, but not in much detail). Hillbilly culture in itself is very flawed, with deep-seated sexism, patriarchy, honor focus and overall lack of educational drive that many people continue to perpetuate. JD Vance does a good job of providing a balanced and unbiased (as unbiased as one can be) account of what's going on in middle America. This book will help people see what much of society in the richest country in the world actually lives like, which is not an easy thing to do