A review by hellbender
The Forgotten Girls: A Memoir of Friendship and Lost Promise in Rural America by Monica Potts

dark informative reflective sad medium-paced

2.5

Like the author, I grew up in the Ozarks in the 90s and was excited to find a book authored by an Ozarker about the hardships of rural communities. But this book is only 1/3 that, and is 2/3s the story of her best friend and sisters. That wasn’t quite what I wanted out of the book, and I found that component of it long, drawn out, and boring. The way the statistics were peppered in also broke the flow, making the whole book feel rather disjointed to me. The ending also left me wanting solutions. It outlines the problems facing rural communities, but no real tangible ideas to improve the communities. So while I liked the subject matter at a high level, I think it could’ve been well addressed in 2/3rds the number of pages.
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