Hill Women: Finding Family and a Way Forward in the Appalachian Mountains

"Hill Women" typically will draw comparisons to "Hillbilly Elegy" but for me it is a far better, more enjoyable, and less problematic book. The author comes from Eastern Kentucky and movingly describes her family's recent history and how their lives have all changed and evolved in recent years. But she also questions the nature of what it means to identify as a hillbilly while touching on a people and a place obviously near and dear to her heart. This isn't the "poverty porn" of some books wallowing in the squalor of Appalachia, but an honest look at how hard it is to live there, what their lives are like, and how the culture of the area is changing and evolving. And the picture isn't always pretty. Along the way she weaves in stories of her work providing legal assistance and how the court systems and health care systems make the lives of people in Appalachia worse and to a sense trap them in their circumstance. Along the way she explains how she came to leave her community and how wrenching it was for her. And her returns home aren't as satisfying as she hoped as she increasingly becomes aware that while she is of that place she increasingly is removed and less a part of it. Along the way you get tales of the strong women in her family, and she renders them so vividly you come to feel that you truly get a sense of who they are and how resilient and truly amazing they are.If anything, "Hill Women" is life affirming if also unsettling about the future of Appalachia and her people. But the author is right about politicians pandering to voters about how they are going "fix" Appalachia by retraining the unemployed, reviving the coal industry, and bringing new jobs to the region. None sought to understand the unique character of the region and the challenges there first, and as a result, every effort has failed or come up short. "Hill Women" is a haunting honest book that helps you to understand a greatly ignored part of our country that could use a little love and kindness.

I hate reading but this book was amazing. I purchased it as a requirement for a college course and fell in love.

This book was great and easy to follow. Learned a lot.

The reviewers here who don’t like this book appear to have missed the point of the book. As a native of a northern Appalachian community, I found Chambers’ story the most relatable and accurate depiction of modern Appalachian life that I’ve seen in the mainstream.She writes, not about the stereotypes, but with an insider’s view of the good and the bad of Appalachia. She tells her own story but frames it to credit those who helped her escape poverty and achieve great things. She doesn’t claim to pull herself up by her bootstraps all by herself. Instead she credits the aunt and grandmother who saw to it her mother received an education and who encouraged her to believe all things are possible with hard work, education and maybe some elbow grease.Most Appalachian people will tell you that it took a helping hand from family, a teacher, friends and sometimes even strangers to set them on a better trajectory. We are known for helping neighbors and for extending small kindnesses, even when we have little of material value to give. This is the narrative of this book.She also talks about finding her way in the world as someone marked by her accent and biases against her home. You follow her very personal story as she gets to know herself and carves out her own place in the world. Part of her current role involves paying it forward to help others as people once did for her.Excellent read in a truthful voice. I was just sad to see it end. I’ve never met the author but am intrigued by how similar her values seem to my own.Read the book.

My family has hillbilly roots (not from Appalachia but from other hills and hollers, you don't have to be from Appalachia to be a hillbilly) ... and I wanted to love this book. Parts of it I did and the first half starts really well BUT the author says she's going to tell the stories of the women in her life and then proceeds to actually make the book all about herself. The first few chapters are engaging and I was looking forward to hearing stories of women like those I know and love but it devolved into her story alone and then into a political ideology that simply wasn't necessary. (Chapter 17 could completely be removed from the book).I appreciate the authors understanding that hillbilly life is not synonymous with outsiders ideas (ignore Hillbilly Elegy) and that mountain women are strong, beautiful, and courageous but I wish she had stuck to telling their stories instead of all about her own. Of course including some of her own would be fine but she veers off into just that about halfway through the book.Still it's worth the read but then be sure to also read Dolly Parton's memoirs, Loretta Lynn's, the book Christy by Marshall and others.

I grew up in Louisville but my father worked for the VA hospital and made frequent trips into the eastern Kentucky mountains and had lots of stories to tell about the men who lived there, their pride, their reluctance to leave even though they could use their GI Bill to further their education. This book added a great deal more knowledge about the women who stood behind those men and the harsh lives they endured.