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

Not bad, but certainly not as good as the reviews have hyped. Other reviewers have commented on the strange structure of the book, a letter written to a child that would never be born. I agree with their assessment that it was odd and jarring. I think I would have enjoyed this more if the author didn't spend half the book moralizing on how and why poverty exists in America and instead kept this a strict memoir. The memoir/essay was annoying. While I found myself agreeing with a few of her assessments, her general castigation of the government as the problem of all her family's ills was tiresome. Though, I come to these opinions from the belief that the government is neither the source of all society's ills nor the source of society's salvation. I don't resonate with opinions where the purpose of government is to provide everything a society should need. As a memoir, it was strong and interesting. As an essay, it lacked backing evidence that wasn't anecdotal. Read for a book club. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have finished it.