Don't even think you don't need to read this book because you've read enough memoirs and enough about 'hillbillies'. Cassie Chambers gives the reader a full and beautiful description and perspective on growing up in Appalachia in the late 1970s-80s and maturing into a woman who maintains her mountain roots although she has lived in the 'bigger' world.

This was a powerful tale of the strength, resilience, and problems of a section of Appalachia in Kentucky, told in an autobiographical manner by Chambers. She grew up there, and has an intimate understanding of the problems and the situations faced by the residents. It is really a celebration of the women of the region, starting with Chambers’ own mother, grandmother, and aunt. She explores the history of the hill country traditions, and how that kept women in mostly home-bound situations. Her mother managed to break out of the pattern by going to college away from home, setting up the opportunities for Cassie herself, but she doesn’t ignore the wonderful contributions of the family members who couldn’t get away to do that. Her aunt Ruth for one, is a magnificent encourager, and misses no opportunity to help Myra and Cassie make the most of their lives. However, life is tough, and many can’t escape the cycle of poverty there. Chambers worked in legal aid for a number of years, and has numerous sad stories about how the poor are often further victimized by our legal system, especially the women. It is a very good portrayal of the real people who live in poverty, and how difficult it is to escape it.


Thanks to Netgalley and Ballantine Books for an ARC in exchange for a fair review.

This memoir is about the author and her family from rural Kentucky/Appalachia - her family history, her own childhood growing up there, a somewhat weaker middle section about her leaving Kentucky for an Ivy league education, and then her return to Kentucky to work for legal services organizations providing free legal services to the poor. It was definitely on the quiet side for a memoir, but a very interesting look at life both past and present in rural Appalachia and the unique challenges for those living there. 3.75 stars.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher, Penguin Random House, through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

This book is written from the author’s perspective. She grew up in the Appalachia Mountains, Owsley County, Eastern Kentucky. She doesn’t want the reader to think “that this poverty is all that exists in Appalachia … as hopeless, broken, dirty.” It becomes obvious that this culture is “men and women who take care of each other even when the outside world does not take care of them.” The primary focus is on the “grit in the mountain women.” It is women’s … “stories of resilience, love, and strength.” However, “women were perceived as having less power.” Although the primary focus is on the author and her perspectives, she does a good job conveying insight into her family, immediate and extended. Life in these mountains is much hard work. Sharecropper’s life, tobacco, coal mining, subsistence living and life in the mountains are well portrayed throughout the book. “In Owsley County, hard work is physical labor that breaks down your body: in a tobacco field, a coal mine, a lumber yard.”

The author and her parents break out of the mountain life. Ms. Chambers’ and her immediate family obtain their advanced education providing the vehicle to leave life on the mountains. Yet, the pull to stay in the mountains is well detailed. While the book touches on a number of women, the main story of the book is Cassie’s life and relationships.

Ms. Chambers wants people “to take something of value from her story, from our family’s tory. It’s a tale of struggle, change, and success.” I enjoyed the book and felt compassion to life in the mountains until politics is pulled into the book. I wish political opinions were left out. Overlooking this aspect, I recommend the book that gives detailed insight into the challenges of people in the “hills.”

I really enjoyed this book, perfect for biography and memoir enthusiasts. This book was generously provided to me through NetGalley. Highly Recommended!

I am fairly familiar with parts of Appalachia, as our church has served there annually for decades. Hardscrabble and a tough life for certain, with some immense poverty. But not poverty of spirit or strength, and this book points that out in spades.

Women are tough. They just are. Women are scrappy fighters and will do what they need to do to help their families survive.

Cassie Chambers beams a spotlight on all this and more in her sharing of life and family love in Appalachia, and we are all better for it.

Hill Women is a very riveting memoir written by a lawyer and a Yale and Harvard law school graduate. Cassie Chambers grew up in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains in Owsley County Kentucky.
Her story tells of the women who supported her and got her to where she is despite their poverty, lack of health care and outside help.
Her mother was the first in their family to attend college and she’s the inspiration behind Cassie and all she’s accomplished.
This is a very moving and eye opening memoir to the people of the Appalachians. It reminds me a bit of “Educated” in only the fact that these women have built so much out of nothing and Cassie has pulled herself out and made something amazing of herself.
It’s books like these that we need. Showing up just how strong women really are.

I highly recommend this book, the author’s loving tribute to her mother, aunt, and grandmother and other women. The pages of this story honor the hills of Kentucky and the strong, proud women who made the mountains their home. This was a very well written book and a very beautiful read. Thank you for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I was immediately drawn to this book but didn’t think too much as to why. By the end of it, I realized that it was exactly what I needed in my life right now. The themes of connection to self, family bonds, education and of course, female empowerment. In a simple to read yet powerfully informative narrative, Cassie (all the best authors feel like friends to me, so I’ll call her Cassie), explains the grim realities of rural poverty while at the same time making me want to move to Eastern Kentucky with my husband and kids.

How does one make an accessible book that also contains a wealth of information, all while just telling the story of average American women? I don’t know, but the average American women in this nonfiction book are shown to be absolutely remarkable while living their daily lives in the the hills of Appalachia. I was so taken by this book that I joined (my pretend friend) Cassie on all her social media and I’m even following her local campaign for Council in Kentucky, all the way from Connecticut.

Cassie’s descriptions of the legal issues of poor, rural women hit a chord with me big time. I’m a courthouse librarian and I work with the urban poor. As briefly mentioned in this book, the problems of these two groups have many similarities and it’s not helpful to argue the differences, but there are disparities to the kind of services that people can get in cities versus the hills of Eastern Kentucky. I can understand Cassie’s sorrows over her limitations of what she can do, so I understand her move to politics.

To further illustrate how personal this book felt to me, I’ve been documenting my family history, and I know my Scot/Irish lineage goes back to Western Kentucky. My relatives moved from Paduca, KY to Hartford, CT in the early 1900’s. I’ve lost my “Hill Women” heritage, but somehow I’ve always felt it there. I believe Aunt Ruth, who is so lovingly described in this book, would say I have a “piece of hillbilly in my heart”.

I was given an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. One last thought on it- I want to to say there is a beautiful line in the epilogue about the path between heaven and earth. Gorgeous. Can’t wait to see what Cassie does next.

I enjoyed Hill Women, but it was a bit all over the place with the subjects it covered. The pieces that described the author's family who lived in the mountains was wonderful, and it was eye-opening on little legal protection women in the mountains have. That being said, half the book was not about hill women at all. Most of the book follows the author, who didn't actually leave the rural life her family did, and her education, mostly Ivy League. While interesting, it was not the reason I wanted to read the book.

Definitely a second tier Hillbilly Elegy or Educated.

Thank you to Net Galley for the ARC for an honest opinion.

Not bad, just nothing all that exciting. I did enjoy learning more about what it was like growing up in the mountains of Kentucky, a very different life to mine so I always appreciate learning about how life is for others. Hearing about the justice system from the eyes and experiences of those from the area was generally interesting as well. In the later half of the book the author uses this platform to share her political beliefs which, unless I deliberately choose a book on politics, I'm not all that fond of reading.

The Strength of Rural Women Through Democrat Colored Lenses
This story has so many tendrils that I am surprised that the author could turn it into such a cohesive book. Her beginnings are the same as many of us. A rural background that was poor and subsistence only. Most of her community were raised with a fear of the outside world, no idea of what a good education could bring and a strong work ethic. Family, faith, and community were everything. One's word is his bond and reputation means everything. The women are the source of strength in this world. The author follows her mother from this life to go to college and have a profession. She describes her two worlds quite well. The difference and its causes are very complex. Although my ancestors were not Kentucky coal miners or tobacco farmers, the roots and the lives are very much the same. I think that this similarity could be found in most families in the country. The sadness is in the conditions that help foster those who don't get out and don't eventually get ahead. The author also has several non-family members that are great examples of these tough, mountain women. The author then falls off a cliff and blames hundreds of years of problems in the 2016 election. So disappointing to find all of her narrative has been colored by being the vice-chair of the Democrat Party of Kentucky. I loved the book until that point. But, from then on it becomes a political rant espousing campaign rhetoric as Gospel truth. That is where I wonder about the truth of all of her narrative. At one point, she even states that she is telling a rumor she heard (page 185). She points out a Catholic nun who is Democrat and splits hairs on the abortion issue and being pro-life, not pro-birth. She then speaks of racism and sexism as being Republican traits and accepting Gay couples and transgender people as being Democrat traits. She counts people supporting Democrat candidates for local positions as a healing of the political divide. I found that so disappointing that I can't recommend this book as a good history or as an examination of the lives of hill women. I received this ARC book for free from Net Galley and this is my honest review.

I DNF'd this book @ 90%.. I found out about this book via a NetGalley email where I believe this book was compared to "Educated" by Tara Westover. I enjoyed that book much more, rating it at 5 Stars. I was about to rate this book "Good" (which is 3 Stars for me) when I was enraged at approximately the 90% point of the book. My kindle said that there were 20 minutes to go, but I just slammed the book shut. I didn't need or want to read any more of this book. This author cleverly slapped onto the end her political views which I vehemently disagreed with and didn't want to read any further. I keep referring to this example, but Johnny Carson used to make jokes about both political parties so as not to disenfranchise half of the population of his audience. This author's comment about Supreme Justice Brett Cavanaugh was the last straw for me. I did not post any review on Amazon, Goodreads or Barnes & Noble. Since I did invest a week of my valuable time reading this and made it to 90%, I'm just going to leave my comments right here, and believe me, I have restrained myself. The link below from Goodreads simply shows my entry that I DNF'd the book @ 90%.

I love reading memoirs about strong women, and Hill Women was a great one. I went into this book thinking it was going to be about how big of an impact education can have on women in poor communities. And it definitely did was, at least in part. But it was so much more. Seeing how these women lived had a huge impact on me. I was hugely impressed by how strong they were (and are).

I think this is an important and timely book because it gives a lot of insight into how poor people, especially in Appalachia live and think. Their values, for example, are probably different from a lot of ours. I’ve talked before about how reading books that expose us to the experiences of others is important. It broadens our worldview, and Hill Women definitely did that for me.

If I’m being honest, this book took me a bit to get into. The writing didn’t immediately grab me. But about halfway through, I found myself becoming more and more invested in the lives of this family. While the story wasn’t exactly exciting to read, it was enjoyable. I think Cassie Chambers had an important story to tell, and she told it well.

I fell in love with this book in the first few pages. I picked up Hill Women as an ARC because it claimed to tell the tale of Appalachian women. I was not disappointed. Cassie Chambers writes of coming home to Owsley County in West Virginia after working as a rural lawyer. She recounts her childhood from her own perspective, writing of the resilience of her family and community.
Although Chambers skips back and forth through time as she recounts her childhood, her experiences of her family, and her own decisions to pursue an education, Chambers' story is always moving forward. And while she shares her experience of moving out of poverty, she never(at least in her current writing) looks down on her roots or where she came from. Rather, she is careful to show the respect her history, the history of rural Appalachia, is due.
This book made me miss living in North Carolina, even though I know my life in Swannanoa was far removed from Chambers' stories from rural Kentucky. There's something about the culture and the beauty of the landscape that pulls on certain heartstrings for those of us who have lived in rural Appalachia.
I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Just finished me e-arc courtesy of #NetGalley ! Wow! Inspiration for women and men everywhere! In this all important election year this novel relates to everyone from the Hills to the Inner City! Thanks to you and your family for sharing this story if resiliency!
Happy Publication Day!

This was so well done. I really knew nothing about Appalachia. I’m amazed at what these women have done and accomplished in their lives. I enjoyed meeting all of the people in this family, and extended family. Cassie and her mom Wilma are amazing examples of determination. I am so glad that I was allowed an early read through Netgalley.

Cassie Chambers was born and raised in Owsley County, Kentucky, the poorest county in the United States. With the determination handed down to her by her mother and grandmother, she attended Ivy League schools and became a practicing attorney. This memoir is her story as well as a defense of the women from her homeland, a manifesto opposing stereotypes and misconceptions. I read it free and early thanks to Net Galley and Random House Ballantine. It will be available to the public January 7, 2020.

Eastern Kentucky is in the heart of Appalachian Mountains, and its residents are stereotypically called hillbillies by outsiders. As a scholar whose childhood was rooted there, Chambers is in a unique position to share the culture’s nuances and strengths. She was raised by parents that had to save up to buy her a set of Old Maid cards from Walmart; going out to dinner, which happened Sundays, meant a single Happy Meal at McDonald’s shared three ways. But her mother’s determination to graduate college drove home the value of an education, and when Cassie had the opportunity to spend the last two years of high school at a boarding school for high achieving students, she leapt and her family supported her.

Chambers’ narrative is intimate and deeply absorbing. She weaves her own story into the larger story of Appalachian women: their culture, their history, their strengths and the challenges they face. She discusses the difficulty of receiving public services in an area that is spread out among hills and hollers, devoid of transit and low on personal transportation, and that has no government buildings to speak of; she also describes the pride that sometimes prevents its residents from accepting help for which they are qualified. She has a bottomless well of riveting anecdotes that illustrate the sense of community and willingness to lend assistance to neighbors in need even when those offering help have nothing extra to give; the Justice system often fails those that need protection from domestic abuse, as well as those addicted to drugs and alcohol. And she discusses remedies, including Jeanette’s Law, which reverses Kentucky’s absurd legal requirement that victims of domestic abuse must provide the spouses that they are divorcing with an attorney at their own expense. This was one of Chambers’ most important projects. Another is having expungement fees waived for low income residents, an especially urgent matter since in Kentucky, felons aren’t allowed to vote. Democracy is sidelined when class and race become obstacles to participation in civic life.

But the most memorable tidbits are the more personal stories, for example that of her Aunt Ruth, who married late in life. Before they were wed, Aunt Ruth had a conversation with Sonny, her husband-to-be, in which she explained to him carefully that if he ever hit her, she would be forced to kill him, in his sleep if necessary, using a large claw hammer, and so if this was likely to be a problem then the wedding should be canceled. (It wasn’t.)

The best memoirs combine a social issue or political problem with a personal story told by a top-drawer storyteller, and Hill Women succeeds richly in both regards. I recommend this book to women everywhere, and to those that love them.

Hill Women is a memoir about life in and around Appalachia, especially focused on the author, Cassie Chambers, and her mother and grandmother. Her memoir compares the lives of her grandmother (with very little education, who met her 30-something-year-old husband when she was a young teenager,) to her mother (who fought for a local college education while married and raising a baby,) to Cassie (an Ivy League graduate and Harvard lawyer.)

She emphasizes over and over again the pride of the older generations in Appalachia, an area known for both extreme poverty and a strong work ethic. Later in the book, she broaches the opioid epidemic and the 2016 presidential election, discussing the negative effects of both especially in this region.

While I enjoyed this book and liked learning about a different part of the country, I do wish that there were even more personal stories about the women's history, as those stories were the strongest part of the book and what makes it special. It was interesting learning about the work the author did to improve her situation and the situations of too many domestic violence victims in Kentucky, but that part could almost have been it's own separate book. I wanted more about life in Appalachia itself.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review. It has not influenced my opinion.

I love Hill Women. I dont often pick up a memoir, I love reading about Appalachia. I live in East Ohio which is considered part of the foothills. I have known many women who would fit into this book. I liked it very much and will gift it many times. Thank you netgalley for the opportunity to read an arc of this book. The opinion was my own