Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Book review: The Girl's Guide to Homelessness by Brianna Karp

Title: The Girl's Guide to Homelessness
Author: Brianna Karp
Genre: Non-Fiction
Subject: Homelessness
Publisher: Harlequin
Release date: April, 26, 2011
Length: 352 pages
I got this book: From the publisher for review through NetGalley

Summary:
When Brianna was 22 she managed to escape an abusive past and made her dream come true, namely having a steady job and a place to call home. Then the Great Recession hit and Brianna lost her job. She spend six months taking temp jobs, trying to make ends meet while she applied for hundreds of jobs before she had to give up her home and ended up on the streets. Luckily she inherited a trailer from her dad and was able to park it at a parking lot of a Walmart. From there she started a blog about her experiences being homeless.

Personal opinion:
When I picked this up, I did expect it to be a different kind of book. I thought it would be more like a guide, as the title implies, but it wasn't really. So I do think that the title can be a bit misleading. However this doesn't mean that this book isn't worth the read, because it is. We first learn how Brianna became homeless and also about her abusive past. Brianna wants to fight the prejudges that people have against homeless persons and that is the main reason for her to tell her story. The book covers a year of the homeless life of Brianna with various ups and downs. Brianna suffers a lot during this year and I really felt for her because of the awful things she went through. I have to admit that I had my own prejudgements of homeless people and that reading this book surely helped me becoming aware that every homeless person has a story and that most of them don't choose to be homeless. It surely gave me some things to think about and it made me feel ashamed of my own prejudges. Go and read this book because it is time that the taboo on homelessness is lifted and that we don't longer ignore these people.

For more information please visit Brainna's Blog.


I liked it!

Purchase links: Amazon
Other reviews: Books Before Bed, The Blue Bookcase
If you have reviewed this book and want your link here, please leave a comment with the link, and I will add it :)

No comments:

Post a Comment