Now, a month after I've read this book, I'm having a hard time remembering what I learned from it, which about sums the book up for me. Ehrenreich is an engaging writer, and the idea behind the book is an interesting conceit--take one highly-educated woman and put her undercover working minimum-wage jobs for a year and see if she can make a living. However, and this may be more of a commentary about me than about the book, I found that I walked away learning about what I expected to: making a living on one minimum-wage job is impossible, and two is very very difficult. What I did find interesting was the way she mentally adapted to working these menial-labor jobs; the way that she didn't excel, didn't rise above her circumstances, but rather found herself ground down to them instead. In other words, education really is the golden ticket out, but not because it makes us smarter. Rather, it allows us to escape the places that don't let us use our intelligence.