What's So Bad About Being Poor?

Deborah M. Foster writes in What’s So Bad About Being Poor? a bracing, moving, and unvarnished examination of American poverty from the perspectives of those who have experienced it. With its unflinching gaze, this deeply personal book defies stereotypes and misconceptions and presents an insider’s, humanizing perspective on the institutional powers that create and maintain economic oppression. Thanks to Foster's strong narrative, readers are transported on a journey that is heartbreaking but also hopeful. Based on her personal experiences with growing up in poverty in rural Appalachia as well as on others marginalized by poverty, she erases the misconception that poverty is a moral failing. In its stead, she presents resilience, intelligence, and community as pillars of the lived reality of poverty. The raw emotional resonance and unflinching honesty of the book have been lauded by critics and readers alike. One critic wrote, "Foster writes with fierce grace that cuts through pity and speaks to truth," with another praising her for "laying bare humanity's price for economic injustice with clarity and compassion." Even more than a memoir or a sociology tract, Foster's book is an appeal to compassion and sympathy. She asks readers to consider what lies behind economic statistics in people's actual lives and hearts as they try to get by in a world that doesn't value them. It is an urgent and opportune book, a book that is rightly hailed as capable of converting minds and opening hearts. What's So Bad About Being Poor? doesn't merely challenge us to reconsider poverty—it commands us to do so. And by doing it thus, it is a revolutionary book, calling society toward a more just and empathetic future.