Hill Women

Reviews

“Hill Women is a gritty, warm love letter to Appalachian communities and the resourceful womenwho lead them. . . . [It] feels especially urgent now, in our post-2016, post–Hillbilly ElegyAmerica. In a sense, Chambers is responding to the ‘bootstraps’ narrative of J. D. Vance’s controversial memoir, which has been criticized for blaming Appalachians for their own circumstances. Hill Women shows an Appalachia that Hillbilly Elegy obscured.”—Slate

“Engaging . . . With humility and humor, Chambers tells not just her own story, but those of her parents, grandparents and other kin, as well as those of her clients, women who struggle to get schooling and work, escape abusive relationships and raise their children despite poverty, isolation, the opioid epidemic and a legal system that makes every action and transaction especially difficult. . . . Chambers’ story is especially effective because she tells it without outrage or indignation, rather with gratitude and pride. . . . Hill Women is a fine memoir that shines light on an American region far too often denigrated and stereotyped.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune

“In Hill Women, Chambers . . . break[s] down myths about the region and reveal[s] just how strong its people are.”—Nashville Lifestyles

“Cassie Chambers tells the story of the women in the mountains of Kentucky who nurtured her, as well as her own journey to become a fierce defender of Appalachian women. This is a book that teaches us about service and gratitude, family and the tenuousness of belonging, and the power of education, loyalty, and home.”—Steven Stoll, author of Ramp Hollow

“Cassie Chambers’s intimate portrait of the lives of rural mountain women will complicate everything you think you know about Appalachia . . . This is a stunning and expansive book . . . offers us a nuanced and necessary feminist perspective often lacking in our national conversations.”—Rachel Louise Snyder, author of No Visible Bruises

“Women in Kentucky’s Appalachian community come into focus in lawyer Chambers’s powerful debut memoir, which aims to put a human face on a stereotyped region. . . . This is a passionate memoir, one that honors Appalachia’s residents.”—Publishers Weekly

“A nuanced portrait of the women of Appalachia . . . [Chambers] offers a personal and compassionate voice to the national conversation around poverty, class, and economy in the Coal Belt. . . . The argument floating below the surface of this memoir is one about economy and culture—an economy that generates massive wealth, at great human cost, and a culture of contempt for the poor."—The Progressive

“This Appalachian memoir doesn’t just celebrate the women of the hills—it fights for them. . . . [Chambers] faces the region’s challenges with heartbreaking accounts of opioid addiction and a legal system less concerned with justice than it is with wringing money out of the broke and desperate. Like the hill women before her, Chambers is pragmatic, fighting for achievable change in a punishing system.”—Shelf Awareness Expand reviews