This summer I seem to be stuck on reading memoirs of growing up in the Midwest in the 1970's. This is another good one. She Got Up Off the Couch is actually a follow-up to the author's earlier memoir, A Girl Named Zippy. I think I liked this one even better. Kimmel covers a lot of territory related to growing up in small-town Mooreland, Indiana, and she does so hilariously.

The title refers to her mother, who at age 40 got up off the couch and escaped "twenty four years of poverty and terror and ennui" by enrolling in college and succeeding in the face of overwhelming odds. "She could not clean a condemned house with no running water, she could not cook meals with food that didn't exist or wash clothes without a washing machine. Without clothes. She couldn't drive a car she didn't have, without a license she couldn't acquire. She had taken her vows, and then they had taken her, and the forces amassed against her were greater than love, greater than obligation. They were elemental, heavy as a dead planet." The mother's story is truly inspiring and was my favorite part of this book with many good parts.