Hand to Mouth, Living in Bootstrap America

The Book: Hand to Mouth, Living in Bootstrap America

The Author: Linda Tirado

The Publisher: Putnam Adult, 2014

The Acquiring: Goodreads Giveaway, In the end of September.

My Thoughts: I love her in your face, take no prisoner writing style. It's refreshing to see someone just write and not worry about being politically correct like so many non-fiction books. She hides nothing, sugar coats nothing and tells her life of what it's really like to live in poverty.

Everyone should have to read this book. It's very much an honest unapologetic look into the working class and poverty in first world countries. I'm Canadian not American but I'm sure that it applies very much to Canadian culture as well.

I had not read or even heard of her essay before I read the book. Actually, I still haven't read it.. well only if the entire essay is in the first part of the book. I'm not sure. I guess I should go and find it on the interwebs to see.


The Lowdown: An explanation of poverty from someone who is actually poor.. or was poor. She pretty much covers all the bases of stereotypes on poverty and then blows them out of the water. She points out all the elephants in the room and talks about all those things that make people uncomfortable talking about.

The Goodreads Rating: Almost 4 1/2 Stars but 4 stars on Goodreads.