Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive

This was an engaging memoir. It's something that I think would be a great read for the kind of people who are mad about welfare moms, but those people probably won't ever read this, so whatever. But Land's memoir perfectly demonstrates the razor edge that a lot of Americans in poverty live, where the slightest extra expense or piece of bad fortune can send a whole house of cards toppling down. (And that's even with her white privilege, a factor she doesn't really engage with, but it bears keeping in mind as a reader–it seems almost impossible for Land to have accomplished what she did, so how does someone else pull this off if the deck is stacked even higher against them?)

Anyway. I was moved by her observations about her daughter, as well as the empathy and insight she shows toward those whose houses she cleaned.

This would be a good one for a lot of book clubs.