The Forgotten Girls is truly one memoir you may never forget in regards to women's friendships, love, and loss and how all three can hit milestones in remarkable ways.
To survive is to thrive and this book delves into that reality with checkmarks along the way that protest the rights of every person be heard.
Whether, we are addressing drug addiction, pregnancy, abusive relatioships, or mending friendships one can be sure that something will need fixing and something may falter.
I'm a speed reader who rarely reads memoirs but this one spoke to me from the start and I'm so glad I didn't take a DNF.
The beginning for me was full of struggles in the way it was written and how it felt to be a one sided downslide of a friend's bad choices in life.
The world isn't easy and as many of us know, "The Life of Hard Knocks" can make you or break you but it shall never become one.
I'm happy with the progression, the fall-out, and the repairs or lack thereof in these relationships as it shows true grit, heart, empathy, and concern and without such we no longer exist to serve others but rather be complacent in our thoughts and self serving.
Thank you to Monica Potts, the publisher, Netgalley, and Kindle for this ARC in exchange for this honest review.

Gave me insight into a part of the country that I knew little about before reading this book. Some parts jumped around making it hard to follow/remember which character was which. Overall a good read.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC of this book.
This book was two stories that are one story. The larger story is about the slow, agonizing death of rural America, as shown in the loss of hope, blighted lives, early deaths of its people, especially its women. And the story that illustrated the larger story is the story of a bright girl, the author's best friend as a child, who planned to escape that small town and live a larger life, as the author wanted to do.
Well, the author made it. The friend .. . . well, her story is here.
This was very well done, extremely affecting, and shines light on problems all of us in rural areas know. Very well done.

A well written and thoughtful look at two girls- Monica and Darci-and how and why their lives diverged. The message that comes through loud and clear is there is no one reason why one girl from small town Arkansas would soar and the other would spiral downward but the degree to which the author's parents were involved in her life was critical, Some of the research presented here will no doubt offend some readers and other parts of it are quite familiar. There are no easy answers. Thanks to netgalley for the ARC. A good read.

Thanks to the publisher for an e-galley of this book. This book is great for those who enjoy writing that blends a narrative memoir style with in-depth investigative journalism. I found this book to be along the lines of Educated and Hillbilly Elegy (though much better than the latter). An emotional look at poverty, mental illness, and addiction in the south.

I thought this would be a book that I would read slowly as I do with nonfiction but this one I read quickly. Monica Potts does such an incredible job of capturing both the deeply personal take on the town representing rural America but also a well researched explanation of how this has happened. It’s deeply devastating and equally heartbreaking but the personal emotions elevated this to a different level. And we have to start talking about this more. Thank you to NetGalley for giving me this arc in exchange for my honest review.

I could not finish enough of this book to be able to leave a comprehensive review, but I hope it finds its audience and I am grateful to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an advance copy.

3.5 stars. This was a truly eye opening book. Filled with citations, personal stories, and following the life of a path the author could’ve fallen to by having Darci as an arc, the story of Forgotten Girls shows up how society fails those living below poverty while still exploring what role we play as individuals in our choices. Readers who felt that HillBilly Elegy was shallow and did not resonate may find what they are looking for with Forgotten Girls - facts, questioning of cultural norms, and going beyond blaming the poor for the issues they face.

This was an excellent, thought-provoking and emotional look at rural girl- and womanhood. My library in Mississippi will be purchasing it.

Brilliant, personal and eye-opening memoir about a friendship between two girls from Clinton, Arkansas. Monica leaves, Darci stays and those girls who stay often pay a high price. In one of the poorest areas of the US, poverty is God's will. And girls have to subordinare themselves under their men's will. No other group in the US has loses that many years in life-expectancy than white women. I learned a lot and could not put it down for too long.
Thanks to the publisher for an electronic ARC. via Netgalley.

I really enjoyed this book and it really pulled me in reading about these friends. This story tugged at my heart and the author did a great job of weaving everything together.

Very near and dear to my heart. My wife grew up near where they book takes place, and experienced similar issues with poverty and drug abuse in her family. Riveting.

In her debut book, Monica Potts with as much love for the women of her rural Arkansas hometown as she does anger for the community and culture that consistently let them down. She writes prose about her childhood friendships that is as beautiful as her treatment of academic literature on poverty and mortality is trenchant. Potts has more insight, understanding, and sympathy for her hometown than do so many authors who have written about the rural regions of our country that have been "left behind" since the Great Financial Crisis.

Reading "The Forgotten Girls" by Monica Potts was like reading an account of my own experiences with life in a rural town, where girls marry and have babies early and higher education is an unattainable dream for many (and indeed, not even something most want). Drug and alcohol abuse are rampant, everyone knows everything about you, and almost half of people in my old school district live at or below the poverty line. Like the author, I wanted something else from life from a very young age and am one of the few who is educated beyond a four year degree and moved on. Unlike the author, however, I rarely go back and would definitely not move back. And unlike the author, I don't feel like I owe anything to those I left behind. I don't think I'm better than those I left behind, I just have nothing in common with that life anymore.

This book will offend many people and, from reading a few early reviews, it already has. People who live in small towns have a lot of pride in those places, and from my experience, and the author's experience, they don't like when imperfections are pointed out, especially by those the residents deem to be outsiders. Places like the author's hometown are often romanticized but in her words "the reality of life in those towns drifts further from that idyll every year." Her book describes an insular place that resists change filled with people who have no desire to see the world outside of the familiar. However, as the author states "the world's going to intrude into [that] little bubble whether [they] like it or not". Readers must remember that this is a memoir and so is one person's personal experience with rural life; it does not claim to be representative of all experiences.
I wish the author would have gone into more depth about the causes and solutions for her hometown's struggles, instead of just scratching the surface, but again it's a memoir and not investigative journalism or a treatise on rural poverty,

Overall, I found this book to be interesting it kept my attention, but I don't know if it would have had I not grown up under similar circumstances. It did create some thoughtful discussions with my husband who grew up in a wealthy suburb and gave me words to describe my childhood experiences so he can better understand why I am the way I am today, I wish the author would have included more about her own life instead of making the book mostly about her childhood best friend.

Thank you NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the opportunity to read an advanced digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Monica and her best friend, Darci, were determined to make something of themselves and get out of Clinton, Arkansas. What ultimately set them on different paths. This memoir is a personal account of what it's like to live in poverty in small town America.

I was excited to have some insight into how outside forces (alcohol, lack of jobs, drugs) can shape an individuals' life and what opportunities aren't even available to these folks. I think Monica's intentions, for this memoir, were good, but I think she seemed to take advantage of Darci for a good story. And despite explaining how easy it was to fall into the traps of drugs, poverty and alcohol, she definitely seemed to imply that she was better than Darci.

Thank You Netgalley and Random House for this free e-galley. Publication Date: May 30, 2023

The Forgotten Girls is a memoir that asks why Monica Potts, the author, and Darci, her best friend, ended up with such different lives. Potts is a successful and respected journalist and author while Darci struggles with addiction, poverty, and despair. They were both so similar in their determination to escape their small Arkansas town and make something of their lives. While recognizing her friend’s mistakes and failings, Potts still loves her friend and that love keeps her grounded and helps her avoid the malignant self-congratulatory judgment of, say, J. D. Vance.

On the surface, The Forgotten Girls might sound like Hillbilly Elegy, but it far more humane and asks a very different question. Vance asked what his relatives did wrong to be where they are. Potts asks what fortune came to her that bypassed her friend Darci. Phil Ochs wrote a song that conveys some of the essence of this book. It’s called “There But for Fortune” and asks people to understand that so much of life is happenstance, the context of where you are born.

Potts points to a stroke of luck when she was in high school, when she applied for a summer program to a college that sounded like the one her mother mentioned, and mispronounced. From that she learned about scholarships and saw there were opportunities that no one in her school told her about. Their high school did nothing to help students imagine greater opportunities. Happenstance led Potts to experience something more when she was making key decisions.



I enjoyed The Forgotten Girls from start to finish. It was fast and lively and while it was full of data about poverty, education, and other sociological factors, she kept the book people-centered and humane, making it a far more interesting book. She isn’t trying to make her readers feel better than Darci and the folks where she comes from. She isn’t trying to manufacture an excuse to neglect people who have been long-neglected or blame an entire region on bad character. She’s trying to understand how she got lucky and how her dear friend did not.

Of course, it’s a memoir so the ending is open-ended. We don’t know what is next for Darci or for Monica Potts, but they do have each other.

I received an e-galley of The Forgotten Girls from the publisher through NetGalley

The Forgotten Girls at Penguin Random House
Monica Potts

Being from a rural town, I thought I might enjoy this but I felt like the story was more about her views on the town and commentary about it. She also brings up topics such as sexism, poverty and racism but doesn't say much about it besides it there. Well yes, we know that.

I also didn't understand how it was so random that she just threw in that she moved back...it almost felt like she was moving back for a social experiment considering she spent most of the book saying how she could never live there and how she couldn't wait to get out the moment she could. She felt like she was superior to all the people in this town the whole time and then she moves back?

I think this would have been better as an article rather then a novel.

This is a hard book to review. In one sense, I appreciate the authors own childhood, her own lived experience while writing this book. She is a main character of the book.
However, I wondered if she ever interviewed Darci? Darci was the other central figure in the book. The one girl who was forgotten.
yet I got the feeling that the author didn't interview her, just observed Darci's life.
For instance, there was one chapter that talked about sexual molestation, sexual assault. I thought for sure that she would say that Darci was sexually abused in some way, but it veered off into a tangent on teen marriage.

Further, some of the authors writing made me believe that at some point Darci died. At the end, Darci is alive and somewhat well?

In the beginning of the book, the author promotes herself and her ideas into the story. The second half, the author is suddenly elusive. You hear that she went to college, you hear about a boyfriend, you hear about her coming back to Arkansas....WHY?! Tell the readers what led to those decisions.

The good points are that the author writes about what is happening in rural towns, the lack of things to do, lack of opportunities. She documents them with studies and her own observations.

I thought it was insightful about how two girls growing up together diverged so differently, but I needed a bit more information to give a full fledged good feeling for this book.

I received this as an eGalley from NetGalley.

This is probably between three and four stars but I was feeling generous so I went with four. These memoirs of people who have grown up in the South but left and feel compelled to write about it always hit me in the gut- for obvious reasons.

Growing up somewhere between rural and suburban (though I feel like twenty minutes in any direction in the south you hit 'the country') and lingering in the middle class but being surrounded by folks who were struggling much more than I could imagine just makes me immensely thankful to grow up with the parents I did and worry about the friends and many extended family who are struggling and continue to struggle.

Oh, I appreciated that the author backed up her points with statistics something that few authors of this genre (cough JD Vance) do.

I was drawn to this book having grown up in rural Missouri. It reflected a lot of what I see looking at the town I grew up in. Will recommend to anyone wanting a realistic look into small town rural America.