Kristen’s Reviews > The Jungle > Status Update

This book is depressing as shit! You really feel like the characters are being slowly ground to bits in the meat grinder of capitalism while you watch. And it's depressing because there are so very many ways this still applies to us today.

Yes, but it's just depressing because it's not so far removed from today. This keeping people living just on the very edge of existence so that they won't make trouble continues as it ever did. For instance, I don't have health insurance (even though companies with over 50 employees are required by law to offer it and I work for the largest hotel owner in my state, he simply uses bullshit loopholes to get out of it) so while I may not risk starving to death, if anything serious should happen to me I can look forward to a choice of bankrupting my family or dying in a gutter. So yeah, just like in the book, one wrong step and your done for, that's not changed. I know so many people that have put themselves into debt that will take nearly a lifetime to pay because they had the bad luck to get sick without insurance, the American Dream indeed.

I think I will read something funny next.