Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance

29 reviews

brittney_weber's review against another edition

challenging emotional inspiring sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, and Violence

Minor: Suicide attempt

the_reading_italian's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective medium-paced

1.25

This was hot garbage. I started reading this to see if I could figure out what is going on in this mans head - and it was not very helpful. J.D. Vance brags about a lot of things that he shouldn't, and it becomes more and more obvious throughout the book that he is just severely troubled. I wouldn't really recommend this book to anyone. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Death and Suicide attempt

Minor: Rape and Murder

elizabeth_lepore's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, and Domestic abuse

beklovesbooks's review against another edition

dark emotional funny hopeful informative reflective

4.0

Really enjoyed this memoir. It got a little into the politics of how do we solve these problems, but mostly stuck with a fascinating, insightful and compassionate look at one man’s family history. Got a little into ACE scores and recovery material, but wasn’t preachy. SO much swearing! But it was authentic to the circumstances, not gratuitous.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Cursing, Drug abuse, Violence, Grief, Suicide attempt, and Classism

Minor: Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gun violence, Infidelity, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, War, and Injury/Injury detail

dkamada's review against another edition

hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

2.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Bullying, Child abuse, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Infidelity, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Classism

brittanyhoffman11's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, and Death of parent

sarahs9's review against another edition

dark emotional informative inspiring sad tense medium-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, and Physical abuse

thackerleah's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, and Abandonment

crybabybea's review against another edition

medium-paced

0.25

Fuck this guy. I don't understand why this book is touted as a "compassionate" view of rural white America. I found it poorly researched, hypocritical, and borderline offensive. He frequently gives an opinion by starting with "studies show..." then doesn't cite the study or show any evidence.

I initially wanted to give this book at least one star because I thought the memoir part of it was enjoyable enough, but by the end of the book, with the weirdly disparaging/bootstraps messaging, the stories told about his family and fellow Appalachian people left a bad taste in my mouth. I felt the memoir lacked a sense of self-reflection and cohesion; in fact I found the author to walk back his opinions in weird ways, and it almost came across as having some sort of internalized hatred for himself/the people he grew up around. Then, the second half is spent talking about his time in the military with not much substance or connection to the main thesis of the memoir.

As much as he wants to write this book from the perspective of a poor, hard-working country boy, he is in fact a Yale graduate and a member of the elite class. I seriously hate this book so much I feel like it would be a lie to give it anything other than .25. I still love Mamaw though.

My biggest issue with this book is the touting of bootstraps meritocracy and the author's criticism of the poor working class. He says multiple times that he doesn't believe in systemic issues, but instead thinks that poor people are lazy and pessimistic. And yes, he even makes the "you're poor cause you spend your money on TVs and iPads LOL!!!!" joke. But somehow I'm supposed to believe that he wrote this book as a eulogy out of compassion and love for his culture, people, and family. Mmkay.

I don't feel like putting my thoughts into a cohesive review format so here's a list of weird things the author said that pissed me off:

• Opens up the book with a short-sighted disclaimer that "even though Black people struggle in America, actually white people suffer too and people need to stop viewing things through a racial lens". He also completely denies the history of the term "welfare queen" being used as an insult against poor Black mothers and instead says "every welfare queen I've known has been white" as if that changes the way it has been used to systemically punish and insult Black women? He continues to purposefully ignore race as a factor and fails to acknowledge his privilege, instead claiming that poor people of any race should be able to pull themselves out through hard work and better choices

• Says that addiction is in fact a disease, but then says that it's harmful to believe addiction is a disease because then addicts feel like they have an excuse to never change and never get help

• The second half of the book (coincidentally when the author goes off to the military) devolves into blind patriotism and the author constantly repeats that Americans live in the greatest country in the world and have more opportunities than any other country. But he spends the first half of the book talking about systemic issues (without acknowledging that the issues are systemic) that make America the bad place? And says that the government and corporations are not to blame, but instead people's individual choices? Like the math is not mathing. It's like he got so close to the point so many times and then the cognitive dissonance blinders settled in and he was like "huh, must be I'm just better and more hard-working than everyone else". And yes, I do think it's cringe to cry at "God Bless America", sorry

• Says multiple times that he doesn't think therapy is worthwhile despite acknowledging that he has a high ACES score. I don't think therapy is a perfect end-all-be-all solution, but, with peace and love, this book really shows his lack of self-reflection and healing

• Conservatives never hated Obama because of his race, but because he is a member of the elite class because he is rich. Listen. You can do a super simple google search for "obama racism" and see the incredibly racist imagery and slogans that were popularly used against him at the time.

• Randomly inserts an anecdote about some guy he met in college who spoke out against the Iraq war for being unnecessarily violent and racist. He says this guy has an "objectively bad opinion" because actually the soldiers had to take culture trainings to learn how to not show their feet to the Iraqi people that worked on the American side. No no, no war crimes or dehumanization or racism to be seen here. No, don't google Abu Ghraib

• In the beginning of the book, talks about how poor people are stupid because they rely on payday loans that ruin their credit and keep them in debt. Then later he talks about how payday loans are good, actually, and not predatory at all, and stinky politicians should stop trying to help poor working class people by taking away the few resources they have. Okay
  • Talks about how politicians think they are helping poor people but are so far removed from being poor that they end up making decisions that hurt the people they are trying to help. Btw, this guy is a senator and regularly votes against bills that would significantly help the working class and by 2020 he was fully in support of Donald Trump

• Poor people waste money on expensive Christmas gifts instead of trying to grow their wealth because they want to pretend to be rich and ignore the reality of their lives

No seriously fuck this guy.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Death of parent

arrianne's review against another edition

hopeful informative sad fast-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, and Alcohol