Nickel and Dimed

Reader reviewed by Jamie

This was a good book about a writer who put herself in poverty to see if she could overcome it. The tone of the book was overall very seruise but has sprouts of humor. There were flaws with the situation she put herself in because she had many things going for her. She also proved that there are many flaws with the economy and how in diffrent places it can be harder to have a job, buy food, and pay for rent. It is even harder for a person starting off with no money, unlike her. I recomend this book.

Reader reviewed by Eric Benson

I would definitely like to see everyone in Beverly Hills read this book! This bestseller is about what it feels like to be trapped in the hole of low-wage working. Barbara Ehrenreich, the author, conducts a famous experiment. Although she has previously earned a Doctorate degree, she sets out to a new social world pretending she has no education. She gets jobs such as a Wal-Mart attendant, waitress, and a maid for a cleaning service. This book is eye-opening to people who actually do not know what it feels like to have a low-wage job. People with these kinds of jobs are maltreated in so many ways, and it is wrong. She not only exposes you to what a low-wage job is like, she also exposes you to the life outside of the workplace too. She accurately described how hard it was to find a place to live and what she could eat. Barbara Ehrenreich did an excellent job taking notes and describing every little detail of what that type of life is like. The book is great because it is so honest, she restated the exact language directed to he by co-workers. There is not one sentence in this book that I would ever want to change. The book will also never get boring because every so often Barbara will completely change the setting to a whole different place in the country. This book is a good tool for determination too. It will make you want to work hard and always be considerate to others. That is why I especially recommend this book to high school students, by reading this book it would probably make most kids actually think ahead and try hard. You may think you have a hard life, but by reading about people who actually do not even have a home, it will make you feel like royalty.

Reader reviewed by Alex

The book Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich is one of the most fascinating books I have ever read. I never thought that a teenager could ever relate to this book but I was wrong. This book was one of the only books that has really changed that way I think in my daily life. Its about a woman who decides as part of her journalism career that she would explore the life of the American working poor. She moved to Florida, Maine, and Minnesota with minimal money and her commandment to never reach for her credit card or ATM. She took various waitressing jobs, and salesperson jobs to realize that it was extremely hard to get ahead on 6 dollars an hour. Her main mission was to explore earning wages after being on welfare. While reading this book and seeing the life that Barbara goes through really makes you think that it is not easy to live this way. This book has now made me think differently during my stops at Wal-Mart, Target, restaurants and hotels. I never really thought of the people in these jobs as described by Ms. Ehrenreich as simply struggling to survive. It really opened my eyes. Reading this book will really put it all in perspective when you hear Barbaras co-workers stories. The more you read of this book, the more uncomfortable you will become with the stereotype of the poor being lazy. Many of these people work 3 or 4 jobs and because they have little or no skills or education still make very little money and never seem to get ahead. This book left me wiser and more sensitive to the problems faced by the working poor and I highly recommended it to anybody who is up for something different and wants a whole new eye opening experience.