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Hand to Mouth
Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America | Linda Tirado
7 posts | 12 read | 18 to read
One of the Best 5 Books of 2014 — Esquire "I’ve been waiting for this book for a long time. Well, not this book, because I never imagined that the book I was waiting for would be so devastatingly smart and funny, so consistently entertaining and unflinchingly on target. In fact, I would like to have written it myself – if, that is, I had lived Linda Tirado’s life and extracted all the hard lessons she has learned. I am the author of Nickel and Dimed, which tells the story of my own brief attempt, as a semi-undercover journalist, to survive on low-wage retail and service jobs. Tirado is the real thing." —from the foreword by Barbara Ehrenreich, New York Times bestselling author of Nickel and Dimed We in America have certain ideas of what it means to be poor. Linda Tirado, in her signature brutally honest yet personable voice, takes all of these preconceived notions and smashes them to bits. She articulates not only what it is to be working poor in America (yes, you can be poor and live in a house and have a job, even two), but what poverty is truly like—on all levels. Frankly and boldly, Tirado discusses openly how she went from lower-middle class, to sometimes middle class, to poor and everything in between, and in doing so reveals why “poor people don’t always behave the way middle-class America thinks they should.”
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bookishbitch
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This answers the questions of why poor people make what others would judge as bad decisions. The author does a great job answering the questions from her own experiences. She makes the distinctions between poverty-stricken, poor and broke. A look at how our countries poor are judged harshly and even why, and how, our system could be better. I learned a lot from this and will be thinking about it for a long time. I highly recommend this one.

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rachelk
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Published in 2014 after Tirado wrote a post about poverty on Gawker that went viral, she does a good job of explaining problems of the working poor in America, though her own situation was apparently not as bad as implied (which caused me to waiver on making this a pick). However, I saw a lot of truth in her depiction of low pay service and retail jobs and I do agree poor people are judged and treated badly in our society.

rachelk Later Tirado covered civil unrest as a photojournalist, but lost an eye in 2020 after being shot in the face with a police projectile during the George Floyd police violence protests. She settled with city of Minneapolis in 2022 for $600,000. (edited) 1y
26 likes1 comment
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Clare-Dragonfly

The author of this book, Linda Tirado, was covering the protests against police violence as a photojournalist when police shot her with a rubber bullet, shattering her left eye. I‘m amazed by her bravery and the resilience and positive attitude she‘s showing on Twitter. I think her book will be worth a read!

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Wellreadhead
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JacintaMCarter
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#2017Book201
As someone who currently has three jobs, I understand what it's like to feel like you can never afford anything other than rent and bills. Fortunately, my financial situation has never fallen to what Tirado describes in this book. If you're one of those people who looks at poor people and assumes their situation is completely their own fault, then you are 100% the target audience for this book.

Leftcoastzen I listened to the audio read by the author,I was blown away .I have had multiple jobs and lean times occasionally, but nothing compared to her story. 6y
batsy Great review. 6y
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Ajbsimpson
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Hooked_on_books
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A compelling, first-person account of poverty. It's power is somewhat diminished by spots of anger and resentment as well as the unspoken assumption that money solves all problems (it doesn't). But definitely worth a read for the awareness it raises.

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