A review by zombiezami
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond

Did not finish book. Stopped at 6%.
I started reading this after reading Poverty, By America. I was very underwhelmed by that book, but I thought I'd try this since it's earlier and I wanted to know more about the author's specific research. Right away, the book felt super voyeuristic. I kept being bothered by the question of, "Did he get informed consent from the victims of eviction he recorded?" One of the early anecdotes in the book is the author tagging along with a landlord who's about to evict a number of people. Based on the high tensions implicit in the verbal back-and-forth, this made me even more tense. I kept wondering if he was trying to do some both-sidesism here. It could be the case that questions of methodology are answered later on or in the notes (I was listening to the audiobook, so I couldn't see those), but I'm not willing to stick around long enough to find out.

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