I thought this book was a great insight into America's health care system. It was nice to get a perspective of someone who has been on both sides as patient and health care professional. Definitely worth reading.

Cost of Living explores the price of survival for a woman whose early adulthood was shaped by her struggle to pay medical bills she accrued following a suicide attempt at age 19. As someone writing a memoir that is in part about my own health struggles, Maloney's book resonated personally given its intimate focus on the experiences of a young woman attempting to address her medical needs within a deeply flawed and complicated healthcare system. I also appreciate that the book offers an insider's look at the experience of working in the healthcare industry—as an ER technician, EMT, and writer for a pharmaceutical company—and examines the suspect billing practices and overabundant opioid prescriptions that have been all too common in the world of healthcare. Maloney is an elegant writer and master of observation with a unique and important story to share.

*received for free from netgalley for honest review* This was a very powerful read. Coming from a rural area where the nearest medical care is over 20 miles away and most people don't have insurance anyways, this was a very interesting read. would recommend and buy.

I really didn’t like the writing style and was unable to finish the last 1/4. I was very interested in the subject matter of paying for health care and dealing with health crisis but it seemed repetitive after a while.

Maloney's essays are raw and unfiltered. This memoir, covered through a series of essays, touched on mental health, the state of the healthcare in the United States, the intersection of mental health and physical health, and the interaction of our societal norms with mental illness. Maloney's depiction is a direct study in how much the lack of appropriate and affordable mental health care is having a starkly detrimental impact on our citizens. Maloney is able to present a view from both the patient and practitioner prospective, as well as that of someone behind the scenes in a pharmaceutical company. So many varying perspectives, all through one set of eyes!

A very quick read, this memoir gives glimpses into the mind of someone on the autism spectrum who was failed magnificently by the medical establishment. At times it felt disjointed with some chapters feeling out of place or unnecessary. Overall, missing pieces of the story were integral to understanding the author and timeline. While interesting, I wouldn't recommend it.

This set of short stories was incredible!! the author gave great insight into her experiences as both a patient in the healthcare system and as a healthcare worker in various capacities. She brought some humor into her stories, but mostly it was compassion for those navigating the healthcare system as well as working in it. By the end, I felt hopeful myself, as it can be awfully frustrating to be a patient.

I really enjoyed this book. It's a collection of essays centering around the author Emily Malone's experiences surrounding healthcare - both as a patient as an insider. Emily's essays cover issues ranging from being a patient with multiple diagnoses and prescribed medications, to her experiences working in the medical field. She gives unique insights and crucial information about medical billing, pharmaceutical marketing and research, the opioid crisis and the industry of pain management. Reading this expanded my knowledge on several issues and confirmed some of the suspicions I already held about some of the practices that keep people from being able to get the help that they need.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an e-ARC.

I couldn't put it down! In this informative and intimate essay collection, Emily gives readers an insider's look into the U.S.'s broken healthcare system from the viewpoints of patient as well as medical professional. Though I had some prior knowledge having dealt with health problems myself, other information she revealed was shocking and extremely troubling to read. I appreciated how Emily balanced the memoir with both her personal stories and the stories of others. Her writing is beautiful, thought-provoking, and often very funny. I highly recommend Cost of Living.

Really enjoyed Emily's Cost of Living - a must read for anyone who's experience mental health, the health care system, has family that has etc. Her perspective of health care in America is both humorous and gut wrenching. I like the essay format - easier to. pick up and go. This book is a wake-up call to the major flaws of the system.

This book is so important. The writing is great, and Maloney perfectly balances her personal stories with the stories of others. We all know the US healthcare system is broken, but books like this demonstrate it so clearly, this has the power to change things.

While I knew a lot of the truths in this book in the back of my mind, seeing them on the page was INFURIATING. There is so much wrong with the American healthcare system and this book spells that out so well. I think everyone that reads this will have their eyes opened, no matter where you fall on the political spectrum.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

My first 5 star review of 2022.

Just wow.

Listen, as an American you simply must read this contemporary essay collection.

Mandatory.

Read it; internalize it; grieve with it; laugh full-bellied HAHA’s with it; punch fists of ire into pillows over it; but most importantly LEARN from it and go forward with it in mind when you vote.

Pub Date: 8 Feb 2022

Thank you to @netgalley & @macmillan.audio for the advanced listen audiobook in exchange for an honest review 🙏

In a essay-memoir like book, the author takes us on a journey through her life and experiences with medicine, therapists and mental illnesses. Having dozens of therapists that didnt help her, giving her countless of drugs that didnt do anything, and then working on a hospital and struggling while taking lithium. We get in her head to get why she acted the way she did with other people and different situations. And also, as the title says, how it affected her economic situation, since every little aspect of living costed her money.

Such an insightful view at the healthcare world. To be honest, i wasnt expecting to be that engaged (for no actual reason, just a me thing) but i actually loved reading this, it will never stop surprising me the amount of stuff that you have to pay in order to, literally, just live, and i loved to see her actual experience, it was really sincere and she didnt (it felt like) kept nothing from us, readers.

I love a collection of essays and this one absolutely did not disappoint! These essays are necessary and brilliant and so well executed. This book is a wake up call!

Thanks to the author and to NetGalley for an advance copy, in exchange for my honest feedback.

This book presents a unique perspective on healthcare and mental healthcare in America, from someone who's seen every side of it. The author has worked on what we now call the frontlines of medicine, as well as billing and medical research, and she's been a patient for chronic illnesses and mental illness. Firsthand, she has experience that few people have so completely, and she tells her story in compelling ways.

From the beginning, I was hooked on finding out the "cost of living" -- the literal financial burden of surviving a suicide attempt, and all the ways that debt has to shape the rest of a life one didn't ever intend to live. What I wasn't expecting was how the cost of living comes in other ways too, in career burnout and research interests, in renewed empathy for strangers' medical debt, for how hospital staff talk about patients right in front of them, like they aren't even there.

Three stars, because most of the essays were fascinating, but a few of them felt too slowly paced and/or slightly disconnected from the rest of the stories, but overall, I enjoyed this and would recommend it to anyone looking for a firsthand account of how medical, career and personal lives intertwine.

The healthcare system is an utter mess, this book helps to showcase that, with humor and humanity. Excellent read for anyone.

I found this book to be very interesting and informative.

The author grew up in a dysfunctional home where it seems her parents suffered from mental illness. The author, Emily Maloney, having some issues of her own, was sent to various therapist for years starting at a very young age. She was sometimes treated like a guinea pig, being offered an assortment of pills that caused multiple problems for her with the instructions to let the therapist who gave them to her know how this new medication worked. Often treatments and medications for mental illness weren't covered by insurance.

With an insiders look at the healthcare system, a list of drugs, prices and how her body reacted to them, as well as her experiences learning to fit in with others in life, this is a truly eye-opening book.

I gave this 5 stars because through these essays Emily doesn't seem to hold anything back, and she gives the reader an honest, raw look at of her experiences.

In Emily Maloney's "Cost of Living", she explores the literal and figurative costs in the healthcare field through her experiences as both a patient and healthcare professional. She amasses large medical debt during her psychiatric hospitalizations and charts her history with different medications and providers through the years. She then pivots to her time working in emergency rooms and with pharmaceutical companies as a medical writer, where she still struggles to pay off her large debt. Because she illuminates where the money is spent from multiple angles in the healthcare system, it is a thought-provoking picture on how healthcare and money are related. It took a little while to figure out where Maloney was going with this collection, as it first read more as a personal account of being a patient, but she pivots away from that as the primary focus into her professional career in the healthcare field.

Thank you to Henry Holt & Company via NetGalley for the advance reader copy in exchange for honest review.

I appreciate the publisher allowing me to read this book. I found this book not to my taste but worth reading