Hillbilly Elegy

I read it a few months ago. I enjoyed it but it was right up my alley. A general summary is that it is biographical about his hillbilly childhood and the effect that it has on his professional career. What makes it good is that while it is about hillbillies, it could really be about any fringe group within society.

The first part is pretty sanctimonious. Although I think he was right about a lot of what he was talking about with the kid in the flooring store.

It's a fairly entertaining book. I could have interchanged some of his family with some of my relatives.

Overall, pretty interesting book and an easy read.

Worth reading, but I don't think it's worthy of all of the praise it's received.

It is an interesting window into Vance's life and why it sucks to be small-town poor, but it does not really provide any solutions to the problems identified.

I think a lot of readers who grew up wealthy in bigger cities found it eye-opening...I grew up in a shitty small town and Hillbilly Elegy didn't really add anything to what I already knew about the lives of poor people in small towns (to clarify, my family was not poor and my personal experiences weren't anything like Vance's, I'm just referring to my general awareness of what was happening to people around town).

Edit: Agree with the poster above about being able to interchange some of his family with some of my relatives; that's why I found it enjoyable, but not really impactful/transformative/etc.

Just bought it. About to start. Am certain I will be able to relate to some of it.

Just met up with somebody and they were telling me to check it out.