Thursday, January 17, 2019

Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth

Heartland by Sarah Smarsh

For a 288-page book, it took me way too long to read this. I figured it would take me less than a week, probably a lot less than that. Although there were quite a few parts that were interesting, it was written in a way that was very slow reading. Parts, she wrote directly referring to her unborn child that she never had as a teenager, unlike past generations of her family, which kept up the cycle of poverty.. Like many others who have reviewed this book, this device was not really necessary and was a nuisance or distraction n to the story. She also seemed to blame the cycle of poverty on the system that held people back , which may be somewhat true, a good part of the continuing cycle of poverty for many, including her family are bad choices made during life. Although economically poor, she always had people who loved her and a roof over her head. Maybe it was not the ideal home, but she always had a place to go. One other thing that I feel would have helped me and possibly other readers,, past and future, would be a family tree since there were so many family members. At times, I found myself struggling to remember, who was who, since so many husbands and boyfriends were in and out of the story. It is difficult to properly rate this story. Overall, I feel it deserves 2.5 stars on Goodreads, but of course, Goodreads does not allow that and I have to decide between lowering it 2 stars (an OK rating) or raiding it to 3 stars (a good rating). Based on how long it took me to read a relatively short book and what I have mentioned above 2 stars seems more realistic as far as what I've felt while reading this and the day and a half since I finished the book before actually writing this review.


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