Hand to Mouth

By Linda Tirado

Hand to Mouth - Linda Tirado
  • Release Date: 2014-10-02
  • Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Score: 4
4
From 120 Ratings

Description

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.” 

Reviews

  • Great Stuff

    5
    By Sgiunta
    Filled out a review just in case you had a quota :- )
  • Am I in the twilight zone? How do people think this is good?

    1
    By Marcuscadwell
    Unless I am misunderstanding the message of this book, and this is actually a book written comedically or satirically about stupid poor people that make stupid decisions to put themselves in that horrible position as they are in, then this book is freaking ridiculous. The tone by itself is annoying to listen to. How she righteously brags about making poor decisions and how after all these chapters about how ridiculously poor she is and can't even afford to pay her bills or get her teeth fixed, she decides after getting pregnant to have another kid because obviously her kid needs a playmate to play with? How can you be dirt poor and justify bringing a child into this world with no way to take care of it and then decide its a good thing to do. My god. Read this if you want to witness stupid people making stupid decisions. This woman should not represent all poor people
  • Hand to Mouth

    4
    By Move2lose
    This book was raw, offensive and honest. The author makes you think twice about judgements and assumptions made about the poor in America. Be brave and read it. Don't get hung up on the grammar. Try to see life from another perspective. After reading this I'm curious about if there are differences between being poor in rural vs urban America. Most of the author's account sounded urban.
  • Get a marketable skill, or die!

    4
    By AlfredENeuman
    I’ve been through some of what this author lived in. That was when I went through college and worked a service job for a few years. I can attest to some of the accuracy of what’s in this book. And yes we need to look at the good things we have, including our skills and talents, as gifts given to us. I’m glad I took the advice from my (single) mom: get a marketable skill, or die. Do that before anything else. Nothing was more important than that. Not dating. Not family. Not social life. Nothing. Hey kids - If you get such a chance, grab it with all your strength and don’t let it go. That will be your survival. Read this book to find what NOT having a marketable skill is like. And be glad for the author that she does indeed have such a skill! One note: The author goes on about ‘rich people’. I can’t help but wonder if she stereotypes and generalizes ‘them’ as much as someone from that group might generalize and stereotype poor people. We are ALL prejudiced. That’s how we function.
  • Hand To Mouth

    4
    By Gaines725
    I enjoyed this booked. Author definitely had an interesting journey! One thing for certain is that I never want to be poor.
  • Hand to Mouth

    1
    By tfpharm
    Do not waste your money on this book if you are even barely living life comfortably. Author seems to think anyone that can pay their bills each month with no problem are privileged a...holes. Also too much profanity . Definitely not worth the money or time.
  • Been there,...and been THERE

    5
    By OG Snowflake
    Good decisions, bad decisions....yeah, they matter. But so do so many other factors. Good parents. Abuse. Hidden pain that is self-medicated. Race. Stuff that makes success so much more difficult. Sarah Palin's daughter was a teen mom. But I suspect her "bad decisions" will affect her future in very different ways than the rest of us.
  • Depressing and confusing!

    3
    By Leisleigh
    Having grown up in poverty I was fortunate to have made the right decisions at the right time to pull myself out of it and comfortably into the professional middle class. On reading this book I started to question just how much of it was due to my efforts and how much of it was luck. I'd always believed it was because I worked hard with jobs during high school, working three jobs at college, joining the military and obtaining postgrad degrees while my family remained behind to work menial jobs, stayed on welfare or frequently turned to drugs. On reading this book I questioned of it was ever really possible to get yourself out of poverty or if luck and circumstance played a bigger part then I'd appreciated. Then I read about the authors background, rather then pulling herself out of an underprivileged background she'd made conscious, adult choices that left her in a disadvantaged situation. She writes about the impossibility of getting out of the cycle of poverty when in fact it appears that her life is the result of her decisions. Her background d seems to be the antithesis of her book, your decisions can alter your life in a positive or a negative way. Stop blaming the world around you.
  • Hand to Mouth

    4
    By Scandal42
    Thought I knew it all. What an education for all of us all of us.