So once upon a time, I moved away to Boston and I helped form a new book club here but unfortunately this was the book that got picked for this last month, Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich. No. I really shouldn't be so negative, and I really am excited to see if any of you have read this book and what your thoughts are because the actual book club meeting we had on this book was good and was actually much more enjoyable for me than reading the actual book, so I am anxious to hear the thoughts of you who may have read this book.
Anyway, basically this lady goes "undercover" to live the life of those who have to get by earning minimum wages. Which is a cool idea, except for there were so many unrealistic/invalid parts of her "experiment" that it kind of made me crazy. For one, she only ever stayed in a place for a month, and I just have a hard time thinking that she was really able to develop how it would be to live there and work for a place in only 30 days because I know how I am with my own jobs and that in the first 30 days you are still just kind of figuring stuff out and barely making connections with people, etc. And she did try to recognize some of these limitations of her experience, but still. It bugged.
Also, I couldn't really determine what the purpose of the book was. I thought that it was going to be a call to action or something like that, but it definitely wasn't and so I turned to it possibly being "informational" but I don't really feel that it was that either, because the information seemed inaccurate. Anyway, sorry to be Negative Nancy about this book. Let's just say I give it 1.5 or 2 out of 5 stars.
3 comments:
Hopefully the book club will decide on something more up your alley next time. The good thing about book clubs is there is always a next time. (Unless they keep choosing bummer books.)
I heard about this book in my sociology class. I never read it though. From what you say, it seems like a glamorized social experiment.
I've heard of this, I think it might actually be on my "to read" list on Goodreads. I'm glad to hear from someone who read it though. I will probably still read it, so we can talk about it, but yeah. I don't like when you don't really get the point of what they're doing, other than they're just doing something to be sort of sensational. I will read it and let you know what I think.
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