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Bianca makes me feel as though she and I just stepped off the first shuttle from the Mothership, and this world is brand new for us to make into whatever we want.
“social mobility isn’t just about money and economics, it’s about a lifestyle change. The wealthy and the powerful aren’t just wealthy and powerful; they follow a different set of norms and mores. When you go from working-class to professional-class, almost everything about your old life becomes unfashionable at best or unhealthy at worst.”
― Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
― Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
“Psychologists call it “learned helplessness” when a person believes, as I did during my youth, that the choices I made had no effect on the outcomes in my life.”
― Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
― Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
“If you believe that hard work pays off, then you work hard; if you think it’s hard to get ahead even when you try, then why try at all? Similarly, when people do fail, this mind-set allows them to look outward. I once ran into an old acquaintance at a Middletown bar who told me that he had recently quit his job because he was sick of waking up early. I later saw him complaining on Facebook about the “Obama economy” and how it had affected his life. I don’t doubt that the Obama economy has affected many, but this man is assuredly not among them. His status in life is directly attributable to the choices he’s made, and his life will improve only through better decisions. But for him to make better choices, he needs to live in an environment that forces him to ask tough questions about himself. There is a cultural movement in the white working class to blame problems on society or the government, and that movement gains adherents by the day.”
― Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
― Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
“For kids like me, the part of the brain that deals with stress and conflict is always activated...We are constantly ready to fight or flee, because there is a constant exposure to the bear, whether that bear is an alcoholic dad or an unhinged mom (p228)....I see conflict and I run away or prepare for battle. (p246)”
― Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
― Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
“Another lesson is that it’s not just our own communities that reinforce the outsider attitude, it’s the places and people that upward mobility connects us with—like my professor who suggested that Yale Law School shouldn’t accept applicants from non-prestigious state schools. There’s no way to quantify how these attitudes affect the working class. We do know that working-class Americans aren’t just less likely to climb the economic ladder, they’re also more likely to fall off even after they’ve reached the top. I imagine that the discomfort they feel at leaving behind much of their identity plays at least a small role in this problem. One way our upper class can promote upward mobility, then, is not only by pushing wise public policies but by opening their hearts and minds to the newcomers who don’t quite belong.”
― Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
― Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
amanda’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at amanda’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
62 books
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33 friends
1,953 books
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308 friends
1,491 books
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110 friends
315 books
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54 friends
309 books
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914 friends
479 books
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38 friends
524 books
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247 friends
1,284 books
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314 friends
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