Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - Class: A Memoir of Motherhood, Hunger, and Higher Education

Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

Class: A Memoir of Motherhood, Hunger, and Higher Education by Stephanie Land

10 reviews

lindsayvale's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

3.25

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cgreenstein's review against another edition

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challenging sad tense slow-paced

3.0

The social commentary is good. The personal decision making is incredibly frustrating. I read another review that commented that abuse and trauma change your brain chemistry and make it hard to make good choices, recognize and escape detrimental patterns, and mature. This memoir makes a *lot* more sense in that light, and I wish that the author had included some of that background or self-analysis (though maybe she hasn't realized this about herself yet) to help us understand her better. There's a line in the book where she says she would joke with her friends at that time that, although she was 34-35 during the course of this book, she'd never matured past age 23. I think that was one of the most revealing snippets of the book for me, because if you read her as someone in her early 20s, many of her choices are still suboptimal, but she comes off as more sympathetic. I wish an editor had pushed for more self-reflection to be included in this, and while I understand that part of Land's point is that poor people should not need to justify their decisions in order to be treated well, and that is true, I think this book is a missed opportunity for someone who is a highly skilled writer to explain from the inside out why her choices seemed rational to her so that readers of different backgrounds can get a better handle on why she and other people in similar situations make decisions that, absent a knowledge and understanding of poverty and trauma, seem obviously and infuriatingly bad.

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challenging emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

3.0

Application/Impact: 2

Connection to the book/Enjoyment: 2

Educational Value: 3

Purpose/Originality: 2

Writing: 3
Every point= 0.25 stars, max of 4 per category

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