Cassie Chambers grew up in Owsley County, one the most impoverished communities in the Appalachian Mountains. Her mother Wilma, both beautiful and smart, left the family tobacco farm to attend a small college nearby. As frightened as she was leaving home, Wilma knew this was the key to a better life for her family and herself. Cassie was often looked after in the ramshackle home of her Granny, Papaw and Aunt Ruth. She ran barefoot through the fields with her cousins and other local children. Even though the family struggled to make ends meet, her days were filled with an abundance of love and hard work, the mainstream of their lives. As Cassie matured, she strove for the same accolades her mother had, good grades and an upward climb on the steep education ladder. An opportunity for a unique boarding school in New Mexico during senior year took Cassie away for the first time. A turning point, this filled her with even more drive and determination, which served her well through the most prestigious academic institutions of Yale College and Harvard Law. Always torn between two very different worlds, it took years for Cassie to truly understand and honor the beauty she found in these heroic mountain women who were creative, brave, loving and tireless. With deep admiration and respect for her family, Cassie yearns to find a compromise that will allow her the rewards she has earned and ways to make real change in the lives of these often forgotten women. Highly recommend this compelling work of non-fiction which reads like a novel. Loved it!

I enjoyed reading Cassie's story of the Hill Women in her life, and how her Kentucky upbringing by these women motivated her to get ahead in life. Growing up in a small Texas town, I know that most often it is the women who support the men and children when times get tough, and that was Cassie's experience in Appalachia. In this memoir, Cassies describes the physical challenges of working the land in the tobacco industry, dealing with the health hazards that tobacco inflicts, and the unfortunate lack of medical treatments in the Hill culture.

This memoir is easy reading, not earth shattering, but sweet and satisfying.

A publicist wrote, suggesting that since I’d enjoyed the book “Educated,” I’d probably also like “Hill Women” which releases in January. I took her word and read it.

Hill Women is the memoir of Cassie Chambers. Cassie grew up in the hills of eastern Kentucky, which must be a pretty rough place. I could relate to some of what she wrote about: I, too, had a “Mamaw” and “Papaw.” I heard plenty of “ain’t” and country music. Although I grew up in southern Indiana, it wasn’t all that far from Kentucky, and “Kentuckian jokes” were regular fare in my childhood. Like Cassie, my high school mascot was an owl (hers because she grew up in Owsley County, mine — I’m not sure why).

I enjoyed the first part of the book, where Cassie discusses her upbringing. Her mom, aunt, and grandma teach her what she says mountain women learn: the value of work, and that hard work pays off. “My mother built her life around teaching me,” Cassie writes, and due to that she succeeds. She goes to a fancy high school out-of-state, and ends up at Yale.

Along the way, and especially once she leaves the community, Cassie begins to question her upbringing and her childhood home town. She looks at her parents’ and grandparents’ lives and isn’t very happy with them. “I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to satisfactorily square the gentleness, kindness, and love I saw between them with what I believe to be right and just.” This is where I feel her troubles begin — her mom and grandma seem happy with their lives, but Cassie isn’t. Cassie feels out of place in her Ivy League School. She is embarrassed when she takes her mom to New York City and her mom wears a fanny pack.

After becoming a lawyer, Cassie returns to her hometown to represent poor people, often women who are in bad situations and can’t afford legal representation. This is admirable. But when Cassie later gets married, she marries in Louisville (to the former Louisville mayor’s lawyer son). None of her relatives attend: “Louisville might as well be Beijing as far as they’re concerned … They don’t have cellphones; I don’t know that they have ever seen a parking garage. They don’t know how to get around in a city the size of Louisville, let alone how to use a GPS to guide them.” I was really surprised, given her closeness to her relatives, that she didn’t get married at a place they could attend.

Then, the final section of the book goes into her shock and distress over Donald Trump’s election. I shouldn’t be surprised I guess; once I started the book I found out that Cassie is vice-chair of the Kentucky Democrat Party. She struggles in this part of the book in my opinion, as she tries to square her admiration of her Kentucky relatives and their hard work with the fact that many of them support Trump. She talks with relatives until she finds some who tell her that their support for Trump is waning, and this leads her to feel hopeful: “Maybe our politics aren’t as divided as we think.” Ummm … because people come over to your way of thinking? Not sure it works that way.

I feel this book would have been better as a childhood memoir. Once the author got political, I feel she alienated a large portion of her readers. Had I known that the book would get into her liberal politics, I would not have read it.

This was a very informative, well written and fun story of the authors life, from grown up in the Appalachian mountains of Kentucky, to getting a law degree and trying to make a difference by helping the Hill women in the same area where she grew up.
Cassie Chambers, grew up in Owsley County which is one of the poorest counties in Kentucky, people worked hard, mainly coal mining or growing tobacco, but found it very hard to get ahead.
Cassies Grandmother was married young and was up everyday at the crack of dawn to raise her 7 children. One of her children was the authors mother, Wilma. Wilma was the only one to go to High school and then after that to college. Wilma was married at nineteen,to someone who also made education a priority.
When they had Cassie, Wilma went back to finish her education and Cassie spent a lot of time with her grandmother in Owsley County. There as a young girl she saw how strong, the hill women were. They were hard working, generous and loyal always willing to help someone in need, even though they did not have a lot.
Cassie was always told she could do anything she set her mind to, and as she grew older and having seen what her mothers education did for her, Cassie followed suit, coming back to Kentucky to visit as often as she could.
This story gives us a good look at what life was like in these small communities.
Excellent memoir, very worth reading.
I would like to thank NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for the ARC of this book.

Hill Women provides the reader with an insider's view into the lives, concerns, challenges, hopes, and fears of people living in poverty in rural Kentucky. I especially enjoyed the stories of women that Ms. Chambers has met and helped so far. I think Hill Women be an interesting book discussion title.

Unfortunately, this is not a good review for this book. From the description of the story I was looking forward to hearing of the trials, tribulations, aspirations and accomplishments of the author as she overcomes her childhood. But that is not exactly what this is about, yes, we do learn of her family challenges, their life in poverty, and her grandmother’s dream of sending her mother to college, but I almost felt it was her parents story we should have been reading about, her mother and father worked so hard to get an education and they overcame more obstacles than Cassie did. The author learned how to use wise counselors and her hard-earned grade point average to aspire to an ivy league school, she smartly used the college free system and earned scholarships. Yes, she worked hard, but she didn’t live dirt poor due to her mother and father’s aspirations of providing a good home and life for her.
Then about 50% into the book, when she has survived the hardships of college, overcame her feelings of inadequacy and began a career back in Kentucky, the story went downhill. I had not expected to read about the failing legal system nor the inadequacies of Kentucky law and especially didn’t expect to learn about the Democratic aspirations of the author.
I started skimming the pages about 60% in and once it started on the political side of things, I quit. I choose to not read books about politics, I get enough of that just watching TV or on the internet. I choose to read books for pleasure, unfortunately this book crossed that line. I wish the description would have alluded to the full “rest of the story”.
I appreciate the opportunity from Random House Publishing Group through NetGalley to allow me to read an ARC. The opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. This one gets 2**’s.

This book is similar to numerous other books written on this topic in the past few years in that it portrays strong women as the main characters and mentors for children who manage to escape the dire poverty they grew up in to get a college degree and improve their (and perhaps their families) financial standing. I still liked it! It has strong and engaging writing and the right amount of detail to hold my interest. It is a great reminder that it only takes one person to change someone's life trajectory. It is also a great reminder that we have many diverse and strong cultures in the United States and it was a great way to learn a bit more about one of them.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me an early release in exchange for an honest and fair review.

I thought that this memoir sounded interesting. I have never met anyone from the Appalachian mountains and I have never been to the area, but I love learning about new people and different cultures so I was excited to learn about the Appalachian people and Cassie Chambers' family. This was definitely an interesting read. I found myself interested from the very beginning of the book. The author has a great writing style an interesting family story to tell. I enjoyed reading about her family, her mom and her Aunt Ruth in particular seem to be the strong women she modeled herself after. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys memoirs or who finds people and geographic areas different what they are used to interesting to learn about.

An interesting glimpse into Appalachia. Having read at least 5-6 novels in recent years that are set in or inspired by the Appalachians I was looking forward to this memoir. Hill Women covers the author's life story; growing up and spending time in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky and moving on to Ivy League schools to ultimately graduating from Harvard Law and returning to rural Kentucky to work as a lawyer serving the impoverished and under represented. The author also includes *a lot* of statistics and heavily researched data on the area. So much in fact, that I felt like I was reading a lengthy college research paper for much of the book.

*netgalley provided a free digital ARC

Really enjoyed this book. Well written and eye-opening memoir of contemporary women and families in the Appalachian Mountains of Eastern Kentucky. Life, characters, and challenges come alive for the reader. Recommend.

This book is about the people who live in eastern Kentucky in a very rural area in Owsley County. They live in the Appalachian hills and many still adopt and believe in the old ways of doing things. Cassie Chambers tells her story of growing up in that small tight knit community. The first part of the book is interesting as it gives good insight to what the true hill women were and their lifestyles. Cassie wants to make something of herself, so decides to enrich her education and go on to college. Most other people in that community do not rate education as being important and many are on welfare. The story then becomes quite political, and I understand that politics was a later part of Cassie's life, but the title made me want to know more about the Hill womens life. I think the heavy emphasis on her political view spoils the entire book and takes away from the subject of the title of the book.

I highly recommend this book, the author’s loving tribute to her mother, aunt, and grandmother and other women. The pages of this story honor the hills of Kentucky and the strong, proud women who made the mountains their home. I was surprised that the author is a young woman. Life in the hollers hasn’t changed much.

The mountains of Eastern Kentucky can protect and also trap people. For Author Cassie Chambers, the mountains gave her life and love. The book is part memoir and part celebration. Cassie was loved by women who valued education. Her mother left Cow Creek holler and ventured to Berea, Kentucky to become the first person in her family to graduate from high school and college. The author was the recipient of her family’s loving encouragement to work hard and get an education. Ms. Chambers graduated from Yale and Harvard Law School. She chose to return to Appalachia and provide legal services to women.

The end of the book features some political discussion, which the author handles in a balanced way. She truly does want to help and honor the people of Appalachia, as there are many problems facing the region.

Is the author a hillbilly? Yes, if that means she is hardworking, creative and someone who embraces the culture of the mountain people. Funny, warm, uplifting, this book and its word picture enables us to visit and learn more about the Appalachian world of Eastern Kentucky.

Thank you to Cassie Chambers, NetGalley, Ballantine Books/Random House, for the advanced digital review copy of this book. This is my honest review.

Owsley County is one of the poorest counties not only in the state of Kentucky but also the United States.

Cassie Chambers spent a lot of her childhood in Owsley with family while her mom finished college and returned throughout her life seeking connection with her roots.

Chambers shares family history to allow readers to understand where she began:  her granny was a child bride who raised seven children isolated in a holler of Kentucky and most of her children gave up on education before high school.  Her two daughters took very different paths: Ruth became the hardest working tobacco farmer in Owsley while Wilma became the first to graduate from high school and then moved an hour away to attend college.
Wilma married at nineteen and then had Cassie soon after, taking time off from college to focus on Cassie.  Against the odds, Wilma returned and completed her degree when Cassie was little.

Wilma's determination opened a world to Cassie that would've otherwise been impossible.  Cassie understood the importance of education and held on to the values learned from the hardworking women of Appalachia, leading her to the Ivy League where she graduated from Harvard Law.
Her roots led her back to Kentucky where she practices law and provides free legal services to rural Kentucky women.

Weaving together the past with her own story, Chambers provides a compelling look at the world opened up to her and how her family shaped her goals and values.  
Hill Women focuses on the strong women of Appalachia and the family history is the shining star of this book.  The discussion of poverty is matter of fact and fairly balanced, acknowledging the different mindsets on government assistance and reflecting on changes over time.
Its weakness lies in the fact that politics are left out of the history but appears at the very end to discuss Trump's influence on Appalachia.  I realize Chambers recently became involved in politics so its fair this would be discussed but I expected she would cover some of the government influence on Appalachia during her Granny and mother's generations also.

A strong beginning and middle with a slightly weakened ending, I enjoyed Chambers' observations on Appalachia and tribute to strong hill women.

I recommend Hill Women to readers who enjoy autobiography/memoir and an Appalachian setting.

Thanks to Ballantine Books and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review. Hill Women: Finding Family and a Way Forward in the Appalachian Mountains is scheduled for release on January 7, 2020.

Cassie Chambers is an attorney, an Ivy League graduate of Yale and Harvard Law School and in this memoir pays loving tribute to the strong women who graced her life growing up in Appalachian Hills in Owsley County Kentucky in a place called Cow Creek. It’s a place steeped in poverty, but filled with people of grit, gumption, creativity, hard working people like her grandmother, her mother and her aunt. The poverty is extensive, as she describes the lives of the people here. Her family was more fortunate than some as share croppers, even though they didn’t own the land. Grueling hard work was part of her grandmother’s every day existence and in spite of the poverty and difficult life, her grandmother still found joy in life and family. She describes her Aunt Ruth as “the best worker in Owsley County”, devoting herself to her mother and father and the farm when her siblings left to get married. Her mother, Wilma, the first in the family to graduate from college, is the role model who encouraged Cassie to get an education. It is the things she learned from them, the values they instilled in her to which she attributes her life choices and the wherewithal to to achieve what she has.

This is more than a tribute to these amazing women of the hills, though. It’s an expose of the injustices in many ways that these hill communities endure because of the lack of health care, the lack of outside help that leaves these people without services available to other parts of the country. After living a more “privileged life” as she lives in cities where she goes to college and law school, she wants to give back. Cassie returns after getting her law degree from Harvard to provide legal aid mostly to women. Women who have endured spousal abuse, custody battles, divorce, or are struggling to get social services so they could feed their children are among her clients. She shares some of these heartbreaking stories and it’s eye opening. While it’s somewhat repetitive and moved around in time a bit, it’s filled with heart and love and a deep respect she has for her family and other hill women .


I received an advanced copy of this book from Ballantine through NetGalley.

If you have known poverty and strong women in your life, you can appreciate these women from Appalachia who made the most of what they had and did it with pride and dignity. The author did a disservice to Granny, Ruth, and Wilma by dragging in Kavanaugh and Trump. I can understand her strong feelings about politics, but this put a time stamp on a timeless story. The first 3/4s of the book is worth reading.

The book isn't in itself poorly written, but there were so many information dumps that I too often felt pulled away from the story, a story which involved too many characters to keep track of. In my opinion, the book should have been more of a memoir with fewer statistics (the dump of data making it read too much like a textbook at times) or it should have been a book about Appalachia with a touch of the personal thrown in. There were too many personal accounts and/or pages of data that didn't move the story along.

I applaud the author for the intelligence and determination to overcome the odds against her. She is well-educated and accomplished, and deserves much gratitude for giving her time and efforts back to people who desperately need her help.

This book was thought provoking, interesting and heart warming. You can tell that the author put her heart and soul into this love letter to her family and to Appalachia. As a person that was hoping our last election would have given us our first woman President, I've always had a hard time understanding how so many people in need of health care, better jobs and better living conditions could have voted for someone that really doesn't represent or understand them, or in actuality really care, but after reading this book I get it.
I hope that this book gets a big following and is put into the hands of many readers of all backgrounds, because these people, these women, need to be heard!

Read it everyone!

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for gifting me an ARC of Hill Women by Cassie Chambers. In exchange I offer my unbiased review.

For those who enjoy reading and learning about another way of life, this memoir and ode to the people of Appalachia will be highly regarded. Cassie Chambers was raised in a small area located in rural Kentucky, where most modern day conveniences were unheard of and the poverty levels were so dire. Because Cassie’s mom was bright and recognized the power of education she managed to be the first in her family to attend college. She inspired Cassie to thrive for more as well, eventually leading to Cassie obtaining several Ivy League degrees.

Cassie breaks down her story into three parts: childhood, education and returning to Kentucky armed with tools for making change. I admire the author’s grit and tenacity to overcome and achieve so much. It’s clear how much she loves her grandmother, aunt and mother - the strong women who shaped and raised her but yet, I found this memoir a little bit of a slough. Too much irrelevant details and events that didn’t necessarily add to the story. Parts felt redundant and unneeded. There were no highlights and I felt a sense of detachment.

An interesting story but not one that will remain memorable or impactful for me.

I received this from Netgalley.com for a review.

"After rising from poverty to earn two Ivy League degrees, an Appalachian lawyer pays tribute to the strong “hill women” who raised and inspired her."

This book chronicles the life of Cassie as a girl growing up in the Appalachian mountains and successfully becoming a lawyer giving back to her community as an adult.

3☆

What a wonderful read this is, I don’t know much about the South and even less about Eastern Kentucky but this book did such a great job giving me an honest glimpse in the lives of mountain folks, Cassie Chambers did an amazing job not only introducing us, readers to her family but giving us an unbiased 360 look of the mountain life she was born into. I would wholeheartedly recommend this book to any and all readers interested in learning about parts of this country and the people who live there. It’s often so hard to really get a good and truthful glimpse in the lives that I, as a woman living in Northern California, am so far from in my own life experiences. Chambers’ family and friends now feel much more real to me than invisible people who I occasionally see in news headlines about the general region,