Maid is a great read. The author made some decisions in life that led her to a precarious position with a child. She persevered and worked hard and diligently to provide for her child as well as she could while pursuing her dreams. To survive she cleaned houses. Some of her descriptions of what she had to clean were stomach turning. Land's writing is excellent. The narrativetvie flowed very well. I do wish she had ended with a footnote, to catch readers up on how her life had changed since the book's end.

I read a lot of books. I rarely give one five stars. To earn five stars a book has to make me want to tell everybody I know they need to read this book AND it needs to make me want to do something or be better. This book, Maid by Stephanie Land is a solid FIVE STAR BOOK! It is a beautiful written true story about Stephanie's life as a single Mom who struggles to provide a life for her daughter. It made me question how we might change "the system," and wonder about what single Mom I could offer a hand to, encourage, and support. I read till after 10 o'clock at night (another sign that a book is amazing) and woke up before 6 AM to finish it and put my feet out on the cold floor to go write a review. I did receive an ARC to review this book but I will go buy a copy and give it to someone and hope they pass it on to someone else. This is a book that catch you in the story and change your heart along the way.

I would give this a 3.5 probably. I have the utmost respect for this mother's story. She worked hard. She's a good writer. She made her dreams come true with pure tenacity. I think her survival of domestic abuse is all too common and I appreciate her openness. I would have liked a little more introspection on the ways that being a white woman provided her a safety net and the benefit of the doubt in a few situations that would not have been available to a woman of color or immigrant. Looking forward to reading more from her. (ARC/NetGalley)

As somebody who grew up in poverty but with two relatively stable parents, this was a real eye opener for me. I really enjoyed the way it was written and how dramatic the story was. I would recommend anybody who thinks the poor are just standing there with their hats in their hands, asking for something without giving anything in return to read this book so they can understand where so much of the working poor population of this country are coming from.

This book is about what it's really like to be poor and no one to rely upon except yourself. The margins between surviving and ending up homeless are very thin. You're one car accident or illness away from total disaster, and you have nothing in reserve.

Stephanie Land's book is an important one for its description of what life as a single mom with no education or job prospects is like. The author worked hard as a house cleaner to pay the bills, with little help from relatives or her daughter's father. She had to live in a moldy studio apartment that made her child sick, and she took on nasty jobs most people wouldn't do.

This was a very good book, but it could have been a great book. Like some other reviewers, I noted that she never faced up to her own initial bad decisions that landed and kept her in this situation in the first place. She got pregnant with a guy who was a loser and had no interest in becoming a parent. She never considered adoption as an option to give her child a good home, and she moved in with a guy she didn't seem to even like, seemingly in an attempt to put a roof over her head. After she complains about people ditching her over and over again, you keep wanting her to take responsibility for her share of the breakdown in her relationships, but she never does. It takes a certain maturity to admit that you've made mistakes and aren't perfect, and I just didn't see that in this book.

Overall, however, I found the book riveting and recommend it, especially to young people.

An honest and easy to read story of a single mom's struggle to survive for herself and daughter #maid #netgalley

I'm married and didn't have kids, so there isn't a lot I could personally relate to. I'd heard about this book, and it didn't disappoint. Ms. Land is a talented writer, and has a work ethic that is to be commended. I felt it could have used a little editing, but not enough to make me stop reading. Yes, she made some poor life choices, but she owned up to that, and figured out a way to crawl out of the hole she found herself in. She busted her ass to keep her daughter fed, did very little whining about her predicament, and ultimately took a chance on herself. I'd like to see this book sell well, because she deserves it.

love this book, characters were well developed. The plot had many twist and turns. Great read., cannot wait for the next book..

I was a big fan of Nickel and Dimed in the US, which was written from the viewpoint of an undercover reporter, basically, but it changed the way I think about low-income jobs forever. THIS book is written from the viewpoint of someone who's actually LIVED this life, not just someone "trying it out." A good reminder that we are all just trying our best in the world - let's treat each other with kindness and respect.

Stephanie Land debuts this novel with a powerful punch. She finds herself dealing with unfortunate adult issues such as single motherhood, homelessness, and abusive, combined with a lack of education. She supports herself cleaning houses - hence the title.

Struggle is obvious. But this novel didn’t speak to me as much as I thought it would. I probably sound awful saying that, but I simply couldn’t get into her voice. I felt isolated reading this, and wish I could have gotten a better sense of her relationships with others. She also tries her best to make ends meet, but that’s the struggle with a lot of Americans - men and women - in today’s life.

Spectacular debut from an author whose voice and perspective are needed in the literary world. The work ethic and resolve that enabled her to survive leaving an abusive relationship and holding whatever jobs were available to her (including that of a maid) in order to raise her child and get herself into her dream school in her dream city, are nothing short of heroic. To translate that with emotional clarity on the page, with honesty, grit, and narrative propulsion is why this memoir works so well. The fact of this book's existence is proof of Land's survival. The beauty and eloquence of this book is proof of her talent and diligence as a writer.

4.5 stars

This is an important book. Stephanie Land gives a very accurate and inside look of what life is like for those who struggle to make ends meet. The marginal ones who teeter on the cracks of one bad illness, car wreck or another emergency before ending up homeless. The daily struggle to live is hard for many people to imagine and Ms. Land has poignantly described its daily reality.
I really think this is a book people along all economic lines should read; for those who live this life or close to it, they will be able to relate and appreciate her stories. For those who enjoy a middle class and above lifestyle, this book will be eye-opening for them.
Ms. Land shares what she observes as she cleans the homes and offices of the people fortunate enough to be able to pay someone to clean for them. She is invisible in their comfortable world, yet she knows all of their secrets.
I truly found myself rooting for Stephanie and her daughter Mia! I hope this book does well enough to give them a solid financial cushion; so she will never worry again about buying essentials for her and her child.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher and NetGalley. The views given are my own. #NetGalley #Maid #HachetteBooks

Overall, the writing is workmanlike and competent. Stephanie Land obviously undergoes a significant series of setbacks on her way to a late start to adulthood, beset by childhood and adult poverty, single motherhood, and dealing with a series of abusive relationships combined with her lack of education. There are places where the work really shines, like when she provides us a window into her past and her relationship with her father, which is complicated at best. But the narrator is someone where things happen to her, rather than her becoming the hero of her own story, and that sentiment continues through the book. It lacks self-reflection; the narrator doesn't really appear to learn much, if anything, from her mistakes. After a while the descriptions of the places she cleans become repetitive and monotonous. It's clear the work has been substantively edited, perhaps by an outside editor, but no real gems rise to the surface and the prose lacks the kind of special polish that makes you want to read; she's just relaying a series of plot points. Like other reviewers, I also found time to be a troublesome issue in this memoir; the book flips around without really nailing down where you are in her timeline. The narrator also doesn't appear to have much agency or insight. I'm not in any way blaming her poverty on her--that's not what i'm suggesting here. There are lots of memoirs that involve horrific poverty or happenstance where the characters seem alive and real (The Glass Castle; Angela's Ashes, This Boy's Life). Unfortunately, the writing is lacking the human spirit that is necessary to make this book a successful one; Land doesn't appear to understand that relaying bad stuff that happened to you is not the only prerequisite for an accomplished memoir.

For any bleeding heart, this book is a double scoop of gelato. Stephanie Land, pregnant and in an emotionally and physically abusive relationship tries to make the best of the situation until it becomes untenable. She then takes her infant daughter to live with her in a homeless shelter. As her family provided little or no support, she must raise herself up by the bootstraps and figure out how to make ends meet. She ended up supporting herself through landscaping and cleaning homes, often without personally owning the basic necessities that many of us take for granted. What differentiates this book from others is the palpable hurt and struggle that shine in her striking and meaningful prose. At times I wanted to shake her for entertaining detrimental decisions, but there was never a time when I was not in awe of the daily scramble to make ends meet. As a mother,I commiserated with the necessity of going to work and having to put her child in daycare even when her daughter was ill though I never was in her situation.Her studio that she later rented was filled with black mold, causing chronic illness in her daughter, but she could not afford anything more. I dare anyone to not give kudos to someone who worked really hard to create her dream and give her daughter the love and life she deserved.

Stephanie Land did have a remarkable road to becoming a published memoirist. However, the road was a long and tedious one. While her story is a heart-wrenching one, this tale doesn’t really add a lot of dimension to the recitation of her daily life. Quite depressing, And with little self-reflection.

Stephanie Land does a great job of depicting the relentless weights that fall on people in poverty. A missed day of work is a devastating loss of income, childcare is necessary but almost impossible to find, and decent housing is nothing but a dream. She works day in and day out and feels guilty for breaks and judged for using the government assistance she so desperately needs. I hope this will be read with an open mind and will help people understand the horrible circumstances that lead to needing such help, and why it's so hard to climb out of the hole once you're in it.

Everyone has a story to tell and people with few physical possessions often have several. 

Stephanie Land has written her story into a memoir tracing her journey through the poverty that defines too many single mothers. Like all of them, she navigated the limited choices that can overwhelm them. Unlike many others, Land came through it in one piece.

It’s been a tough journey, all about hard work, low pay, and Land’s will to survive with her daughter Mia, a strong little girl who learned to walk in a homeless shelter. On her way through these devastating years, Land took on the most menial work, cleaning toilets and kitchens for people with enough money to avoid doing it themselves. She survived two abusive relationships, one of which brought her daughter into her world. At one point, she received support from an alphabet soup of seven different government agencies.

The events Land chronicles took place in the small town of Port Townsend in the north west corner of Washington State. They could have happened anywhere. Homelessness has no home. Poverty has no borders. The desperation is the same no matter which the country. When Land describes the rules and regulations imposed upon people fortunate enough to get into the Northwest Passage Transitional Family Housing Program, she says “being poor, living in poverty, seemed a lot like probation – the crime being the lack of means to survive.”

The memoir gives us a unique perspective on the dynamic between the wealthy home owners who hire maid services and the working poor who go in to clean up. Each home is given a descriptive name, such as the chef’s house, the sad house, the clown house and others. Each family has its own attitude to the hired help, its own way of relating and interacting with them. Land describes each, sometimes with humour and often with a detached sense of irony. A different choice made earlier in life, a tragic circumstance either suffered or avoided, could have put either of them on the other side of the servant’s entrance.

It would be easy to dismiss Land’s experiences as the nightmare of living south of the border, but the homeless are treated just as shabbily in Canada. It would also be convenient to blame it on the harshness of the Trump administration. Convenient, but inaccurate. Problems of poverty and homelessness were just as bad under Obama, Bush, Clinton and all the others. 

All too often, government programs look at the visible manifestations of poverty but avoid the systemic causes.

The rules imposed on people living in poverty are designed to keep them there. Land talks about the grinding difficulty of pulling ahead. Most programs are means tested and a fifty cent raise in a dead-end job could result in the loss of child care funding, plunging a family further into the nightmare. 

The working poor live their lives under the yoke of contradictory government policies. Politicians promise to end child poverty but do nothing to end parental poverty.

Land suffered all these indignities and more, but she got out. Luckily for her, she had a head start. She was born into a middle class white suburban family. The dysfunctional relationship between her parents put her off the rails in her teenage years. Land went from there into a couple of ill-fated relationships of her own. 

She discovered a talent for writing while in school and never gave up the dream of using it to make a better life for herself and her family. She is now a successful freelance writer published in several national periodicals. She uses her writing to shine a light on issues of poverty, homelessness and what the rightward drift in American society is doing to the people who live on the edge of hope.

Stephanie Land has a web site where she keeps her published essays and magazine articles. She describes it as “unflinching writing about poverty and motherhood.” Her book gives us a rare chance to look at the human face of poverty.

#Maid will be released by Hachette Books in January 2019. Advance review copies are made available through #netgalley.com. Advance orders are made available through your favourite independent book store.

It’s so hard to rate and review a memoir. Most are so personal that I feel like I’m rating and reviewing their life. Yikes.

So, Stephanie Land, and Maid. She’s amazing: courageous, hardworking, persistent, committed to being the best mom possible. She gets 5 stars; the book, 3 stars.

Her story is worth reading for its granular descriptions of the very unromantic details of making ends meet in precarious circumstances (e.g. cleaning other people’s bathrooms). It is candidly told, including those unflattering moments (snooping while cleaning, green-eyed envy) that let the reader know that the author is a real person, one of us, not a candidate for single mom beatification. And it casts an unflattering light on many who never missed a meal or couldn’t afford a check up but thought nothing of telling her “thank you” for the food stamps, WIC coupons, etc. that they apparently thought were made from their own lifeblood.

I would have liked a lot more attention to her college classes, her move to Missoula, and her climb out of precarity. If she writes another book on that then I’m IN!

Thanks to NetGalley for a free book in exchange for my honest review.

A very sad and heartbreaking book about a down on her luck single mother who does everything in her power to keep herself and her daughter from sinking into the abyss. It describes her life as a maid and the inhumane things she must deal with all for minimum wage. It opened my eyes to the plight of the working poor. It pulls your heart apart as you cheer for her to make it and move past all the garbage to make it out on the other side.

There was an excellent review on Amazon by ERB; to paraphrase, he points out that this isn't the story of a maid, it's a story of a working poor, single mother. Reading the book and expecting commentary on the life of a maid will be kind of a disappointment. BUT reading a book about real-life struggles that Stephanie and way too many other working poor/parents/single parents live every day - it's relatable if you've ever been there. I have. I remember the huffs, eyerolls, and impatient attitudes I faced in 1993-4, as an unwed single teen mom on WIC and SNAP. I remember living in houses cold enough to frost on the inside.

The book is good as a memoir/documentary of the struggles during this time of her life. There is no real moral, no real insight, no feel-good talking points or political commentary. It's her story. I felt like the "... and then I made it to Missoula and Mia will watch me graduate in two years" wrap-up was way too fast; especially when you go to the author's webpage and see she's raising daughters, and the book's dedication is to her husband but he isn't mentioned IN the book or on the page. I don't think it would take away from her story or struggle at all to shine a light on a happy marriage.

This is a good story, relevant and honest. Kudos to the author for telling it so well.