Book Review of Hillbilly Elegy
To start off this was a very enjoyable read, as the author J.D Vance, who was not an
expert at this topic, as he did not study this topic in college. Although he graduated from
Yale University, he was not an expert at this topic, he was able to use his personal
experiences in his lifetime to discuss the struggle of overall living in areas, of such
poverty. J.D Vance grew up in a poor Rush Belt town, which was an area of poverty and
the standards of living weren’t to high. I do believe the authors back ground affects a
very biased conclusion due to this was a memoir and that he went through these
experiences himself and its a story throughout his life, so his background, time, and
place affect the conclusion reached. The authors point of view throughout the memoir is
that he is telling the story in first person and through his own eyes and lifetime. He gets
very in detail in every point of the story and tells everything like he is reliving the story
again as he wrote it. I see the purpose of J.D Vance writing this book is to tell people
how he followed his dreams of going to college and did not just live to meet
expectations like the others from his small town. Where all the parents did not think they
would ever see their kids go to college and have good job and support a wealthy family.
He is trying to prove to kids everywhere no matter what people say your limitations are
and your hometown is, you can still live the life you aspire. Their is evidence of this
throughout this book as he even states in the introduction,”that he has never done
anything extraordinary, but neither anything ordinary in its entirety either”. This shows
his passion and want to live past the expectations of everyone in the town who thinks he
is no one special and isn’t smart enough for college. Kids in his town usually don’t
wanna do important stuff in their lives yet he has a different inspiration when it comes to
his motivation. There is not another piece that is same as the Hillbilly Elegy, as no one
has had the same life experiences as J.D Vance, there are some similar short stories I
have read in the past as people are not supposed to make it out of their hometown to
be successful yet they overcome the impossible odds of making it in the world and
becoming successful. I truly never put in perspective of how rough living certain areas