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

Having never lived in Appalachia it is hard for me to review this one way or the other. I will say it was a compelling read that kept me interested. I understand living in poverty because we were poor, but my family was always employed so I cannot relate to living off the government dole. The one time I tried to get help I was turned down so I never tried again. Very insightful and gives me respect for Mr. Vance. Read it for yourselves and see what you think.

Ordered 16July can’t track or can’t cancel no place on the website to cancel, but they charged my PayPal accoount! Now it says not available! It WAS available when I ordered it and I was charged at the time of order!

I was really disappointed in this book. I'm glad it wasn't long and I could finish 9t quickly.

What gets me is i didn't realize it was large?print edition. Either I did not pay enough attention or description was not explicit enough.

I could not put this book down! What struck me the most is the resilient determination of a young hillbilly boy who was born into a life surrounded by poverty yet managed to live through the toughest of circumstances. We are all born into and among different types of environments. This young boy along with his family from the Appalachian mountains, an area that is unusual in it's own right, a place where most children who have lived their entire lives there, having never left their impoverished lifestyle while continually being looked upon by city folks as being unrefined. This is a story of love of family, their strengths and their weaknesses, yet they are forever bound through the unity of family, with the use of tuff love, all that is required for their success through all obstacles. Its story contains the harshness of behavior and its consequences, yet it also holds some level of humor leaving no doubt that the love of family is most important and the willingness to change ones circumstances by beating all odds in order to rise and live a successful life is possible!

At first, I thought it was another sad book about the underserved people in areas of the south and I didn't care to read more of that. But instead, it is a wonderful book about the writer striving and overcoming his growing up years in Eastern Kentucky and, while keeping his good and not so good memories of family and the poverty of his surroundings, overcome all to join the Marine Corps, then using that training and discipline to go on to become an Ivy League lawyer. Instead of running away from his past to become an Eastern elite, he chose to take another path and use his considerable talents to contribute in other ways. Having lived a somewhat similar early life in small town middle Illinois, I related strongly to this story. It is moving and one of the best books I have read in a long time. I hope this is not the author's one and only book.