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Editorial Reviews
Review
"The woman who accidentally explained poverty to the nation." —The Huffington Post
“[A] whipsmart woman’s firsthand account of what it looks and smells and tastes and feels like to be living in poverty …brilliant and to the point. You won’t soon forget her voice or her message.” —Entertainment Weekly
“Funny, sarcastic, full of expletives, and most of all outrageously honest. . . . Tirado has a way with words that’s somehow both breezy and blunt.” —BusinessWeek
“In this riveting memoir, Tirado shares in vivid detail what it's like to be a college graduate in the throes of poverty.” —Women’s Health Magazine
“Educative . . . Tirado’s raw reportage offers solidarity for those on the front lines of hardship yet issues a cautionary forewarning to the critical: ‘Poverty is a potential outcome for all of us.’ Outspoken and vindictive, Tirado embodies the cyclical vortex of today’s struggle to survive.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Tirado tells it like it is… Enthralling and horrifying, this should be required reading for policymakers.”—Booklist, starred review
“In Hand to Mouth, [Tirado] uses her piercing insight, coupled with a confessional but unrepentant voice, to open a nuanced and deeply unsettling window into poverty in the U.S.” —Ms. Magazine
“This book should inspire important discussion.” —Library Journal
“The great thing about writing is that it doesn’t discriminate, with regard to race or gender or anything, class included. Being rich and advantaged doesn’t mean you won’t be cruelly exposed on paper as a pompous fraud. Conversely, if you write well, being broke and tired won’t prevent your talent and mental clarity from shining through. Linda Tirado is just a terrific writer. There’s a crucial passage in Hand to Mouth where Linda asks why we all can’t at least just agree that someone has to do the grunt work, and that there’s dignity in that, too. With this strong and unembarrassed account of her life on the edges of poverty Linda single-handedly re-takes some of the dignity that has been stripped from people without means in this singularly greed-dominated, most mean-spirited generation in America’s history. Honesty has its own power and this is a most honest book. Everyone who thinks things are just fine in this country should read it.” —Matt Taibbi, New York Times bestselling author
"Linda Tirado tells it like it is for tens of millions of America's low-wage workers—a group that's growing even as America's billionaires rake in ever more of the nation's total income and wealth. The top hedge-fund partner got $3.5 billion in 2013. That came to $1,750,000 an hour. Yet somehow we can't even raise the minimum wage. Read what Linda has to say and you'll understand it's not because Linda or other low-wage workers somehow deserve to be treated this way any more than the $3.5 billion hedge-fund deserves his pay. The game is rigged and we must un-rig it." —Robert B. Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor, national bestselling author of Aftershock
“[A] whipsmart woman’s firsthand account of what it looks and smells and tastes and feels like to be living in poverty …brilliant and to the point. You won’t soon forget her voice or her message.” —Entertainment Weekly
“Funny, sarcastic, full of expletives, and most of all outrageously honest. . . . Tirado has a way with words that’s somehow both breezy and blunt.” —BusinessWeek
“In this riveting memoir, Tirado shares in vivid detail what it's like to be a college graduate in the throes of poverty.” —Women’s Health Magazine
“Educative . . . Tirado’s raw reportage offers solidarity for those on the front lines of hardship yet issues a cautionary forewarning to the critical: ‘Poverty is a potential outcome for all of us.’ Outspoken and vindictive, Tirado embodies the cyclical vortex of today’s struggle to survive.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Tirado tells it like it is… Enthralling and horrifying, this should be required reading for policymakers.”—Booklist, starred review
“In Hand to Mouth, [Tirado] uses her piercing insight, coupled with a confessional but unrepentant voice, to open a nuanced and deeply unsettling window into poverty in the U.S.” —Ms. Magazine
“This book should inspire important discussion.” —Library Journal
“The great thing about writing is that it doesn’t discriminate, with regard to race or gender or anything, class included. Being rich and advantaged doesn’t mean you won’t be cruelly exposed on paper as a pompous fraud. Conversely, if you write well, being broke and tired won’t prevent your talent and mental clarity from shining through. Linda Tirado is just a terrific writer. There’s a crucial passage in Hand to Mouth where Linda asks why we all can’t at least just agree that someone has to do the grunt work, and that there’s dignity in that, too. With this strong and unembarrassed account of her life on the edges of poverty Linda single-handedly re-takes some of the dignity that has been stripped from people without means in this singularly greed-dominated, most mean-spirited generation in America’s history. Honesty has its own power and this is a most honest book. Everyone who thinks things are just fine in this country should read it.” —Matt Taibbi, New York Times bestselling author
"Linda Tirado tells it like it is for tens of millions of America's low-wage workers—a group that's growing even as America's billionaires rake in ever more of the nation's total income and wealth. The top hedge-fund partner got $3.5 billion in 2013. That came to $1,750,000 an hour. Yet somehow we can't even raise the minimum wage. Read what Linda has to say and you'll understand it's not because Linda or other low-wage workers somehow deserve to be treated this way any more than the $3.5 billion hedge-fund deserves his pay. The game is rigged and we must un-rig it." —Robert B. Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor, national bestselling author of Aftershock
“When our economy and our democracy are both broken, the story Linda Tirado writes here is simply known as real life for millions of Americans who are going broke every day and feel ignored by our government. Every American deserves an equal seat at the table in the halls of power and a wage that can put food on the dinner table. Hand to Mouth should serve as a red flag to the politicians in Washington and the millionaires on Wall Street, this is why we the people are mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it anymore.” —Cenk Uygur, Host of The Young Turks (www.tytnetwork.com)
“For those who have never had the experience, Tirado’s book allows you to hear, smell, taste, feel and visualize life as a minimum wage worker. It also leaves you with two inescapable conclusions. First, poverty can happen to anyone—even if you are born into the middle class. Second, you can educate people until you are blue in the face, but as long as there are jobs that require sweeping floors, flipping burgers, or waiting tables, we will never eliminate poverty until everyone who works is paid a living wage.” —Robert Creamer, Democracy Partners, author of Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win
“Hand to Mouth delivers the message to America’s poorest citizens, ‘You are not alone,’ and it represents a wake-up call to the world’s wealthiest individuals that income inequality has dangerous economic consequences for real people. It is an insightful, heart-wrenching, and at times laugh-out-loud look into how a third of our fellow Americans are living as poor people in an economy that only serves the top 1%. If you can afford to purchase this book, you will be peering into a world you likely have never known and definitely will never forget. Tirado’s words read like a conversation over coffee, but she delivers a devastating blow to our current economic assumptions equivalent to a modern day Oliver Twist or The Jungle.” —Ryan Clayton, Executive Director, Wolf-PAC.com
I’d like people to know that we’re not stupid. Our decisions are not made, nor our lives, lived in a vacuum. It’s not like we’re choosing to eat utter crap instead of quinoa. It’s that we’ve just worked eighteen solid hours and we still need to clean the house and we’re due back at work in eight hours and cooking takes sleep time. It’s the dopamine thing again. You know in So I Married An Axe Murderer, when the dad talks about how The Colonel puts an addictive chemical in his chicken that makes you crave it fortnightly, smartass? That’s actually true. Humans can become addicted to the food of the poor. We aren’t dumb, we know this. We just don’t have the energy to fight it and real food is expensive and time-consuming. And we don’t have the luxury of vanity; we know it’ll make us fat, but why on earth would we care? Are we going to suddenly become less marginalized if we are a size 12 instead of 20? Is that a thing that keeps the rent paid? No? Then we don’t care.
About the Author
Linda Tirado is a completely average American with two kids and, until recently, two jobs. Her essay “Why I Make Terrible Decisions, or, Poverty Thoughts,” was picked up by The Huffington Post, The Nation, and countless other publications, and was read by more than six million people. Hand to Mouth is her first book.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 23 people found the following review helpful
By
takingadayoff
TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE VOICE on October 2, 2014
Format: Hardcover
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Imagine the angry comedian Lewis Black (or if you remember him, Sam Kinison) telling you, at length, what's the matter with this country that he's stuck in low wage work and has little hope of ever improving his situation. That's Linda Tirado -- angry, funny, erudite, working poor.
Ever heard someone ask why poor people eat so much junk food or why they don't take better care of themselves or why they make such bad life decisions. Tirado has answers and she doesn't hold back. She stays angry because the alternative is to give up to depression. Anger is a better choice, as long as she has the energy, but it isn't always easy.
This is the human side of working poverty, and most of us aren't many steps from it. One medical emergency or job layoff could tank your comfortable middle class existence. There are so many reasons, such as the transition from privately held businesses to the prevalence of investor-driven public companies, the economic crash, outsourcing jobs, and so on.
This is an eye-opener of a book that would be difficult to read if there wasn't a dash of humor thrown in, but still quite serious.
(Thanks to Riverhead Books & NetGalley for a digital review copy.)
Ever heard someone ask why poor people eat so much junk food or why they don't take better care of themselves or why they make such bad life decisions. Tirado has answers and she doesn't hold back. She stays angry because the alternative is to give up to depression. Anger is a better choice, as long as she has the energy, but it isn't always easy.
This is the human side of working poverty, and most of us aren't many steps from it. One medical emergency or job layoff could tank your comfortable middle class existence. There are so many reasons, such as the transition from privately held businesses to the prevalence of investor-driven public companies, the economic crash, outsourcing jobs, and so on.
This is an eye-opener of a book that would be difficult to read if there wasn't a dash of humor thrown in, but still quite serious.
(Thanks to Riverhead Books & NetGalley for a digital review copy.)
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful
By
D. M. Crane
on October 3, 2014
Format: Kindle Edition
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Saw Linda interviewed on TV yesterday and decided to buy the book. I am 70, retired, and a homeowner so my life is good now, but I can relate. In my past, at times, I have worked minimum wage jobs, been homeless sleeping in my car a few days, and lived through short periods of having one medical emergency wipe me out financially. This book is a no-holds- barred, truth to power, fact based, exceptional piece of writing. Funny, sad, and strong at the same time and I loved it. Linda, keep writing, you have a gift anda gritty insight into the real heroism of surviving the real world of minimum wage workers.
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10 of 13 people found the following review helpful
By
Carissa
on October 3, 2014
Format: Kindle Edition
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This is a no holds barred account of one woman's life and viewpoints of living in poverty. She makes sure the reader understands that she, in no way, speaks for people who are poor as a whole, but this is how she personally sees it and what she has personally gone through.
She is blunt. She is honest. Her voice is strong and there is no doubt what her point of view is. Some will most likely find it an uncomfortable read, others will feel unsettled by the language used or the no-nonsense attitude that Tirado takes in this book. It is raw, honest, and thought provoking.
It is something that most of America needs to read. Needs to use to help banish stereotypes and prejudices that they feed into whether on a conscious or unconscious level. Heck, it even points out the gross working conditions that many minimum wage workers are expected to work in and shows just how condescending some people can be. It encourages people to treat others just as they'd want to be treated; to treat others as human beings, as equals, as humans.
A few striking sentences from the book are:
"In short, calling me a meth user because I have bad teeth is about as valid as calling me a genius because I'm a fast reader. (Tirado, 35)"
and
"And next time you feel as though you're shouldering more than your fair share of society's burdens, ask yourself: How badly do I have to pee right now, and do I need permission? (Tirado, 191)"
She is not saying that "rich people" don't have problems or don't hit hardships. No, she points out that because they have money that have the capability to take more things for granted. The ability to fix those problems better or quicker than "poor people" can.
It's an easy read and definitely a book that people should give a chance.
(*Note I was given a free copy in exchange for an honest review through Goodreads Early Readers Giveaways.)
She is blunt. She is honest. Her voice is strong and there is no doubt what her point of view is. Some will most likely find it an uncomfortable read, others will feel unsettled by the language used or the no-nonsense attitude that Tirado takes in this book. It is raw, honest, and thought provoking.
It is something that most of America needs to read. Needs to use to help banish stereotypes and prejudices that they feed into whether on a conscious or unconscious level. Heck, it even points out the gross working conditions that many minimum wage workers are expected to work in and shows just how condescending some people can be. It encourages people to treat others just as they'd want to be treated; to treat others as human beings, as equals, as humans.
A few striking sentences from the book are:
"In short, calling me a meth user because I have bad teeth is about as valid as calling me a genius because I'm a fast reader. (Tirado, 35)"
and
"And next time you feel as though you're shouldering more than your fair share of society's burdens, ask yourself: How badly do I have to pee right now, and do I need permission? (Tirado, 191)"
She is not saying that "rich people" don't have problems or don't hit hardships. No, she points out that because they have money that have the capability to take more things for granted. The ability to fix those problems better or quicker than "poor people" can.
It's an easy read and definitely a book that people should give a chance.
(*Note I was given a free copy in exchange for an honest review through Goodreads Early Readers Giveaways.)
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
By
Patricia Heliger
on October 10, 2014
Format: Kindle Edition
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This is an eye opening book. The language is blunt but it presents a life view that many of us have never encountered. I hope that I am a better, less judgemental and more understanding person for having read it. It should be required reading for every elected official and anyone considering a run for office.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By
Crafty Chica
on October 12, 2014
Format: Hardcover
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Linda Tirado speaks the truth with righteous anger and acerbic humor. Hand to Mouth is a book that may surprise you. It will make you mad as hell. It's also laugh-out-loud funny.
This is a book about living poor in America while working several jobs, and existing dead-tired on 2 or 3 hours of sleep every night to get back up and do the overly long, brutal day all over again. Tirado's unflinching view of income disparity is quite remarkable.
The profound resentment and blame levied at poor people for the "crime" of being poor, as well as the day to day vilification of the working poor, life with almost no measure of dignity, no rights even to a meal break or bathroom break at work, no health care, and a heroic struggle for very small improvements that too many of us have and take for granted are a critically important view of how many of us live, and many of us merely struggle to exist.
This is a book about living poor in America while working several jobs, and existing dead-tired on 2 or 3 hours of sleep every night to get back up and do the overly long, brutal day all over again. Tirado's unflinching view of income disparity is quite remarkable.
The profound resentment and blame levied at poor people for the "crime" of being poor, as well as the day to day vilification of the working poor, life with almost no measure of dignity, no rights even to a meal break or bathroom break at work, no health care, and a heroic struggle for very small improvements that too many of us have and take for granted are a critically important view of how many of us live, and many of us merely struggle to exist.
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7 of 10 people found the following review helpful
By
Paul Farris
on October 2, 2014
Format: Kindle Edition
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Ehrenreich' s description is masterful. She really captured the essence of this book. Read it and I believe it will open your eyes and heart to what it is like to be poor in a rich country.
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6 of 9 people found the following review helpful
By
Colleen Kirk
on October 8, 2014
Format: Hardcover
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I had pre-ordered this book primarily because I loved Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich (which by the way is a fabulous book and I highly recommend it).
I had also read the initial online essay by Linda.
I will say that the initial online essay really captured everything that is then talked about in the book.
It felt like they were trying to stretch out the one essay into multiple chapters. And also there was an underlying feeling of anger that didn't come through in the essay.
The book (though divided into chapters) seemed to keep pushing the same points even if they didn't fit into the chapter subject. So, you would think that you were going to delve deeper into an insight or segment and it was the same as the previous. Similarly, the book goes off on very random tangents - that completely divert from the initial thought or insight.
The book did not move quickly and rather was plodding along and not very insightful or engaging.
I am sorry to say that this book did not move me like Barbara's did. I would suggest reading the online essay and saving your $$ - invest them ;)
I had also read the initial online essay by Linda.
I will say that the initial online essay really captured everything that is then talked about in the book.
It felt like they were trying to stretch out the one essay into multiple chapters. And also there was an underlying feeling of anger that didn't come through in the essay.
The book (though divided into chapters) seemed to keep pushing the same points even if they didn't fit into the chapter subject. So, you would think that you were going to delve deeper into an insight or segment and it was the same as the previous. Similarly, the book goes off on very random tangents - that completely divert from the initial thought or insight.
The book did not move quickly and rather was plodding along and not very insightful or engaging.
I am sorry to say that this book did not move me like Barbara's did. I would suggest reading the online essay and saving your $$ - invest them ;)
Thank you for your feedback.
If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
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