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Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis

J.D. Vance

Start date: July 15, 2017

Finish date: August 1, 2017

Discussion: Reading List

Discussion leader: Mary Anne

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Reading List

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What Members Thought

Feb 19, 2025 Jessica rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction

Wow! Just wow! What a story. Honestly it is wild to hear the way his story and life began to see how far he has come now. I think this should be required reading for every high school student (even with the language). He has such a unique perspective coming from the background he has…seeing the underbelly of the country, knowing the importance of having a person in your life that believes in you and challenges you to come out from under such poverty, and his resilience. Man, I hope he continues ...more

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Nov 21, 2017 Dottie rated it did not like it

Shelves: 2017

Sorry to say this just did not go well from my personal viewpoint. I had an extreme reaction to this overall and cannot recommend it as being what it claims to be. It is one man's coming to terms with his own life, yes, but the theorizing on social aspects is sadly lacking in viable informative basis in fact in my opinion. Search out some good non-fiction on these things instead would be my best option to offer. ...more

3 likes · Like · see review

Jul 28, 2017 Mary Ellen rated it liked it

Shelves: nonfiction

This is really a 2.5 star book.

I found this book alternately interesting and exasperating. In the first chapter, Vance notes the incongruity of a 31-year-old writing a memoir. Would that he had thought a bit about that, benefited from the catharsis of getting out this jumble of memory, studies he's read, and inconsistent conclusions he draws, and then set it aside, to go back to it in ten or twenty years when life and a little distance would have taught him a few things. Or would that a kindly ...more

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Sep 01, 2017 Katy rated it really liked it

Shelves: sociology, memoir, contemporary-issues

Finally got this from inter library Loan. I was very curious about the book t, as my dad was from Kentucky.
I thought this was a an extremely honest look at the author's own background and the grim circumstances that foster the dysfunctional behaviors that prevent so many individuals from succeeding in life. Lack of family structure is huge because it leads to so many other problems - alcoholism, violence, drug addiction, crime, loss of incentive... and on and on. That he somehow got through the ...more

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Nov 30, 2018 Tony rated it liked it

Shelves: life-is-too-short-to-finish-this-bo

I tried really hard to finish this book, but let the book go after reading 25 percent of it. It's me, not the writer. The prose is functional and Vance's insights are meaningful, but I just can't read memoirs. I usually just want the Cliff Notes version, and that was true in this case. ...more

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