Compelling book, not as dry/academic as I was worried it might be. As someone who studied sociology and has a large interest in that area, I found this book really insightful!

Herold interviews 5 families throughout the US: Evanston, Chicago, IL; Plano/Lovejoy, Dallas, TX; Penn Hills, Pittsburgh,PA; Compton, LA, CA; Gwinnett County, Atlanta, GA. With the family in Pen Hills, he also writes about his own experiences as he grew up in the same suburb but had a different viewpoint as his white family left behind Penn Hills and left a lot of issues for the Black Families, like the Smiths, to deal with.

It shows that all suburbs are affected by similar issues specifically regarding education and it’s not just one county/state dealing with it. Since Herold is an education journalist it does mainly focus on the schooling issues in the suburbs rather than giving a fuller picture including economics, jobs, housing, etc. so in this way the book isn’t exactly what I expected/hoped for.

I enjoyed that he not only shares each family’s personal experiences/issues but also the history of the suburbs. Not surprisingly a lot of the problems and dwindling of the “American dream” in suburbia is due to racism, white flight, equality/income gaps.

Intrigued to learn that most suburbs were built post WW2 and they were at the center of desegregation since they were built for middle-class white families to escape the cities (which were majority Black and Brown).

I had zero sympathy for the Becker family in Texas who kept claiming they weren’t moving suburbs because of the more Black and Brown families moving in because they were “color blind.” The Smiths were racist as fuck and a prime example of why suburbs and public schools fall apart.

By the third chapter from them, I started skimming. I found myself clenching my jaw and getting furious with the BS anti vaccine, growth hormone, “we’re colorblind and I’m terrified for my white sons” conservative shit she was spewing. I couldn’t stand hearing about how “things used to be” from them and decided it wasn’t worth my time or energy to read that hateful nonsense. And on top of that, she thought she could “cure” her kids AHDH with vitamins/food restrictions and no vaccines?! So on top of being racist they’re also ableist.

I started skimming other chapters a little by the last third of the book. In giving us a glimpse at each family, I appreciate Herold trying to draw a full picture of their lives but there were a lot of tedious, overly descriptive details. I didn’t need the full algebra lessons or minute details of a school board member’s college experience. Also didn’t help that it was 2020 COVID/election stuff which I lived through so I didn’t want to read about it 😭

I was also frustrated that such a clearly well-researched book had the author using the term Indian when he meant Native American.

The first third of the book was insightful and captivating. I was really enjoying it by the last two thirds I was often bored or confused why he was sharing certain things. Overall an informative read I’d recommend for anyone interested in the issues and decline in American public schools (not so much suburbs/urban planning like I was expecting).

Described as "a powerful account of the intersection of race, housing, education, and injustice in America," DISILLUSIONED by Benjamin Herold is the product of four years of thoughtful research and writing. Herold is a prolific journalist with a master's degree in urban education and he brings that expertise to a study of five families, the suburbs where they live, and their schools. They are geographically and, to some extent, culturally, diverse: the Becker family from Lucas, Texas, Robinsons from Gwinnett, Georgia, Adesina family from Evanston, Illinois, Smiths from Penn Hills, Pennsylvania, and Hernandez family from Compton, California. However, Herold points to commonalities: the history of "white flight" and "red-lining" discrimination; the dreams and pursuit of a better life; and the more recent reality of high taxes and fragile infrastructures, with a special emphasis on school districts. He skillfully employs personal anecdotes as well as surprising statistics. For example, he notes that for suburbs "white people went from 79% of the population in 1990 to just 55% three decades later." Those demographic shifts are also outlined in a 2022 report from The Brookings Institution. DISILLUSIONED received a starred review from Kirkus ("ambitious narrative about the simmering inequities in American suburbs") and this title appeared on The Washington Post's list of "10 noteworthy books for January." Herold's own essay in Kappan Online provides an overview. Interested readers may also wish to turn to Dream Town by Laura Meckler, The Injustice of Place, or even Our Hidden Conversations by Michele Norris.

This book should be required reading for all of us millennials living in various suburbs and struggling to figure out what we did wrong or why we are struggling so much.
This book gives an overview of the history of American suburbs by focusing on four families and their lives in each of the suburbs. There is Plano/Lovejoy, TX; Gwinnett County, GA; Evanston, IL; and Compton, CA. HE ties it together by focusing on his hometown- Penn Hills, PA, and a family living down the street from his childhood home. Each suburb has a different history, which I found interesting and informative as I put the pieces together. When he added the personal stories, It made them come alive even more. It’s easy to feel like these are your neighbors or HS classmates you watch on FB. Particularly Susan and her gradual descent into extremism, Nika and I shared many commonalities ( down to completing our doctoral comps from UGA during the thick of the pandemic). Each area had its own historical, socioeconomic, and geographical information that made it feel like this covered many of the stories of suburban families. The only place probably missing was a midwest ‘burb, although I think Penn Hills covered a bit of that demographic.

I live in a Metro Atlanta suburb, and I found the historical aspects of Gwinnett and DeKalb counties explained so much about my current hometown that I’m not sure I would have otherwise really understood. I moved here as the county where I was living was growing through what DeKalb and Gwinnett had already gone through, which explains so much.

A big part of this book focuses on the public school system and, again, specifically, the stories of Penn Hill, Lovejoy ISD, and Gwinnett play out so much in my own life it was interesting to get more context behind the more significant issues that are leftovers from previous generations, white flight, and bad decisions.

Most of the book leads up to 2020, and then we get a bit of the aftermath of the pandemic. I felt the book’s real meat was in the first part and found myself skimming through the late 2020/election parts. Maybe because I lived and it is still raw, in many ways, we are still living through these repercussions. I do wish he would have tied the ending a bit more together. This felt like a story, and while I understand why so many of us are in these situations, there were no recommendations or calls for change/action. I would have enjoyed that and thought it would have tied the book together better.

I loved that Bethany wrote the epilogue and felt it was a great ending. Overall, I had so many reactions while reading, but the most important one was realizing that this isn’t a localized issue and just how big of a problem the suburbs face. My current home county is a 3rd ring burb that is struggling, and I am watching as folks are moving to a 4th ring and recreating the same story repeatedly.

What a great book. I love fiction books that give us hidden glimpse into the suburbs, but this book puts all the research behind it. Great book.

An interesting send up of suburbia and all of its failed promise. Following several families stories, the author builds a history of suburban life in America.