i'd have given this book five stars, but any collection of personal essays will have some clumsy, less-than-stellar stuff. but, mostly, these mini-memoirs made me shaky with sadness (the good, thinking kind of sadness) and appreciation.

Stories too familiar to be shocking, I could have written some and easily grown up next to the others. Dramatic without condescension, these vignettes will linger for a while inside my head."There exist the wealthy and the working class. At Vassar I learned the two are not mutually exclusive. No matter how rich I might become, I will always be the daughter of a janitor. I will always look the woman who empties my garbage in the face. I will always say thank you to the man who serves my lunch. I

I enjoyed this collection of short essays about working class women from a wide variety of backgrounds as they struggle through poverty, inadequate health care, humiliation, inferior housing, poor working conditions, unemployment, dead-end jobs. Their stories were raw, personal, sometimes depressing, yet always engaging. These women may be victims, but they are also strong and resourceful survivors.

There need to be more books like this.

It took me about three weeks to finally finish it (got a little sidetracked...), but it was really engrossing and amazing. The first essay, Waiting, really haunted me, as did My Season of Paper Dresses. Dirty Girl, Dinner Talk, Ghetto Fabulous. My Mother was a Whore. Really, most all of them stick out in my mind in one way or another. Truly wrenching, sticky stuff. Full speed ahead recommendation.

This book was amazing. Although, there were a couple of the stories that were not well written but that's too be expected because it was a collection of stories of women who grew up poor/working class. I personally related to several stories in this book. Finally, a book that gives women who grew up poor/working class a voice to tell their own stories. I loved it!! I especially enjoyed it because it not only tells the day to day hardship that some women endure but it also shows how we survive, a...

Overall I found this a mixed bag. I thought some of the essays were beautifully told and really well done, and others just seemed to be going for shock value, and were filled with so much anger it was hard to see anything else. Some of the essays almost seem to have a bragging tone, of "I've had it worse than you." But as one of the writers said, when you grow up in a poor neighborhood, there is always someone poorer than you. I grew up playing in alleyways and abandoned lots with neighborhood k...

i had big hopes for this book, but i thought it was kind of a letdown. i mean, the female experience of growing up working class? dude, that's me! i was so hoping to see my experiences reflected through brilliant prose. & although in some ways, i saw my own experience reflected in some of these essays, i thought the construction of the book was a little weak. i'm sure you will be shocked to hear, in light of my high esteem for michelle tea (*cough*), that i thought the editing was problematic. i...

It's possible that I would have given this book 5 stars had all of the stories in it been stellar, but that's a high demand of any short story collection. Most stories were very memorable regardless.I really enjoyed this book, it was hard to tear myself away from it. I think most of the appeal came from how personal and genuine the stories felt. It was also interesting to look at the variety of poverty-related experiences -- how different people end up poor and how different people deal with it....

This. Book. It should be a bestseller in the front of every book store. In an age of economic struggle for many millennial women, this book was a warm hand on the shoulder saying "YOU ARE NOT ALONE!".The short stories in this book offered a wide variety of experiences of lower / working class women across race, gender and generation. My personal favorites were:Farm Use by Joy CastroThe Prison we Called Home by Siobhan BrooksWinter Coat by Terri GriffithBlueprinter and Hardwires by Cassie Peterso...

Hits home. Powerful and raw. This collection of writers offer their different stories not for your sympathy or sadness, but as a proclaimation of how it was and is for generations of women growing up working class in America, fighting, suffering, loving.

Without a Net: The Female Experience of Growing Up Working Class is a collection of essays written about working class (mostly working poor) women BY working class women. These stories tell about everyday struggles with poverty, abuse, addiction, health care, housing, humiliation, feelings of inferiority, and the struggle to survive. The essays avoid the usual trappings of voyeurism and romanticism of the working poor and are often gritty and visceral. Stories such as these are very rare as most...

There were a few essays I really liked, but the book just became depressing and too similar after a while. I like the concept, I like the belief behind the pieces, I like Michelle Tea, but the book itself left me wanting more. I wish I knew of other books that handled this subject better to suggest people read instead. And sadly I identified with many people in this book. Or not so sadly. Reading these essays made me want to write my own.

Read my full review on my blog: http://ivoryowlreviews.blogspot.com/2...This book has been hanging out on my unread shelf for a VERY long time! After reading Barbara Ehrenreich's Nikel and Dimed and some other books exploring poverty and the working poor I picked this book up but it got shelved. I'm not sure why except to say I always have a huge queue of books and I have been focusing on frontlist titles for the last few years. Deciding to grab something from my backlist, I picked this off my s...

Reading this was like meeting 15 cousins and childhood friends I'd somehow never met before: some wise in that 15-going-on-30 way, some straight up fiercely, aggressively brilliant and one that your mom makes you play with. I know I'm going to go back and say hi because Shawna Kenney remembers, even if her sister doesn't. I hope there will be a Without a Net II soon! We need one in 2018!!!

This book deserves more than five stars, it deserves all the stars in the world. An anthology about growing up poor in America, and making it anyway. And not making it. And family, and community, and lack there of. Everything in between. This book made me desperate to try harder still.

This book is really about class structure in the US. As much as we like to think that we all have the same opportunities, it really touches on the working class situation. Also, it really makes you open your eyes and realize a) how lucky you might've been, and b) that you can take the girl out of the neighborhood, but your roots are still there. No matter how hard you try to remove them... I thought the stories about working class girls making it to middle class (and upper class) college environ...

I loved the variety of experiences represented in this book but hardly dare expand upon them because I most usually have a net. This is a must read. I don't know--this may be the true representation of the USA, not the super rich who are running for President or what is left of the middle class. The writers each are living or have lived without a net. We all think we know these people and some of us surely have had some of these experiences but rarely do we have this inside glimpse of them or ou...

This is an awesome collection of stories from the perspective of people living in poverty in the US, or who have grown up poor or working class and carry that experience with them through life. There was a really nice range of voice represented (with some emphasis on the young, queer, and Calfornian.)Things that to stuck out to me included the pervasive theme of hunger, the differences in middle vs. working values as they do and do not directly relate to monetary resources, the sense of class-id...