Wanted to read but my book was already in use!

“The people who were content with each other spoke as little as those who bristled with resentment or boredom; it was the rhythm of their speech that differed, like a lazy tennis ball batted back and forth or the quick swattings of a fly.”

What a fantastic first page of a novel!

Such a painfully real and sad story, artfully revealing so many events, choices, words, and subtleties that can shape a person‘s experience, sense of self, intentions, and actions.

“Your now is not your forever.”

Just started this book yesterday. So far so good!

Rill‘s story is incredible and the aspects that are based on a true story are wild. Avery‘s story is less interesting, and in several places, the author‘s choices around figurative language and sentence structures pulled me out of the story and made me wonder why she would phrase something or try to construct certain ideas the way she did.

Switching to fiction for my next paper book.

This is one of those books everyone should read. Informative and enlightening throughout, as well as heart-wrenching and maddening in its up close and personal profiles of several real families and individuals - both those needing housing and those renting it out. Made me feel all kinds of ways and gave me a lot to think about.

“Before she was evicted, Larraine had $164 left over after paying the rent... If Larraine somehow managed to save $50 a month, nearly one-third of her after-rent income, by the end of the year she would have $600 to show for it—enough to cover a single month‘s rent. And that would have come at considerable sacrifice, since she would sometimes have had to forgo things like hot water and clothes.”

“Eviction is a cause, not just a condition, of poverty.”

“It is hard to argue that housing is not a fundamental human need. Decent, affordable housing should be a basic right for everybody in this country. The reason is simple: without stable shelter, everything else falls apart.”

This book is fantastic. Well researched and engaging throughout. So informative and harrowing that I finished it both wanting to climb a small mountain and deciding never to climb anything so tall that it requires bottled oxygen and crampons.