---
product_id: 29946817
title: "Hillbilly Elegy"
price: "€ 36.48"
currency: EUR
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 13
url: https://www.desertcart.sk/products/29946817-hillbilly-elegy
store_origin: SK
region: Slovakia
---

# Major Motion Picture by Ron Howard #1 NYT Bestseller Deep cultural & social insight Hillbilly Elegy

**Price:** € 36.48
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## Summary

> 📖 Dive into the memoir shaping America’s conversation—don’t get left behind!

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- **What is this?** Hillbilly Elegy
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## Key Features

- • **From Page to Screen:** Experience the story soon to be brought to life by acclaimed director Ron Howard—be ahead of the curve before the film hits theaters.
- • **Cultural & Social Relevance:** Understand the forces behind today’s political and social landscape with a memoir named among '6 Books to Help Understand Trump’s Win.'
- • **Unrivaled Bestseller Status:** Join millions who’ve made this the #1 New York Times bestseller—don’t miss the cultural phenomenon everyone’s talking about.
- • **Authentic Insider Perspective:** Gain rare, firsthand insight into America’s white working-class struggles from a Yale-educated former Marine turned Vice President.
- • **Generational Story of Resilience:** Witness a powerful narrative of overcoming poverty, addiction, and trauma—an inspiring blueprint for upward mobility and the American Dream.

## Overview

Hillbilly Elegy is the #1 New York Times bestselling memoir by J.D. Vance, a former Marine and Yale Law graduate, offering a raw, personal account of growing up in Appalachia’s white working-class Rust Belt. Praised for its searing honesty and cultural insight, the book explores themes of poverty, addiction, family trauma, and social mobility. Soon to be adapted into a major motion picture directed by Ron Howard, it remains a must-read for understanding the socio-political dynamics shaping modern America.

## Description

Hillbilly Elegy recounts Vice President J.D. Vance's powerful origin story... From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate now serving as the Vice President of the United States, an incisive account of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town that offers a broader, probing look at the struggles of America's white working class. THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "You will not read a more important book about America this year." — The Economist "A riveting book." — The Wall Street Journal "Essential reading." — David Brooks, New York Times This bestselling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy , is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans in the Rust Belt. The disintegration of this group, a process that has been slowly occurring now for more than forty years, has been reported with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like, offering a searing inside look at poverty in America. The Vance family story, a powerful example of the struggle for social mobility, begins hopefully in postwar America. J. D.'s grandparents were "dirt poor and in love," and moved north from Kentucky's Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually one of their grandchildren would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of success in achieving generational upward mobility. But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that J.D.'s grandparents, aunt, uncle, and, most of all, his mother struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, never fully escaping the legacy of abuse, addiction, poverty, and family trauma so characteristic of their part of America. With piercing honesty, Vance shows how he himself still carries around the demons of his chaotic family history. A deeply moving story about Appalachian culture, with its share of humor and vividly colorful figures, Hillbilly Elegy is the story of how upward mobility really feels. And it is an urgent and troubling meditation on the loss of the American dream for a large segment of this country. What does it take to break a cycle of poverty and trauma that spans generations? A Raw Look at the White Working Class: Go beyond the headlines for a deeply personal account of a people in crisis, from the hollers of Kentucky to the factory towns of Ohio. The Legacy of Addiction and Trauma: Witness the devastating impact of alcoholism and abuse as one family grapples with the demons that followed them from Appalachia. An Unlikely Path to the Ivy League: Follow J.D. Vance's improbable journey from a former marine to a Yale Law School graduate, showing what upward mobility truly feels like. The Fraying American Dream: An urgent, searingly honest meditation on what happens when the promise of a better life seems to slip away for an entire segment of the country.

Review: A wonderful Book That I Highly Recommend! - Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis is a deeply personal, thought-provoking, and remarkably honest memoir that resonates strongly with anyone familiar with the culture, values, struggles, and resilience of Appalachian families and Eastern Kentucky heritage. As someone with roots and family connections tied closely to the Appalachian region, I found this book especially meaningful because it captures many of the realities that people from the region understand firsthand — the pride, loyalty, hardship, work ethic, family complexity, and generational challenges that are often misunderstood or overlooked by outsiders. J.D. Vance writes with authenticity and emotional depth while balancing personal storytelling with broader observations about family dynamics, economic struggle, cultural identity, addiction, opportunity, and social mobility. The memoir does not attempt to romanticize hardship, nor does it dismiss the strength and character found throughout Appalachian communities. Instead, it presents a nuanced and human portrayal of life within that culture. One of the strongest aspects of the book is its honesty. The stories feel genuine, personal, and at times difficult, yet they are also filled with resilience, humor, sacrifice, and determination. Many readers from Eastern Kentucky, Ohio Valley communities, and Appalachian backgrounds will likely recognize familiar experiences, attitudes, and family dynamics within its pages. The writing itself is engaging, intelligent, and accessible. The memoir moves naturally between personal history and larger social commentary without losing emotional connection to the people and places at the center of the story. It encourages reflection not only about Appalachian culture, but also about family responsibility, identity, opportunity, and perseverance. Whether one agrees with every perspective presented or not, Hillbilly Elegy remains an important and impactful memoir that contributes meaningfully to conversations about Appalachian America and working-class family life. It is a compelling, respectful, and emotionally powerful read that will resonate strongly with many readers who share similar roots and experiences.
Review: More questions than answers - J.D. Vance chronicles his "upwardly mobile" journey from a dirt-poor boy in the backwoods of Kentucky, to a Yale-educated lawyer in Washington D.C. It is quite a journey, to be sure. J.D.'s story is one of family ties, bad choices, cyclical dysfunction, and in some cases, redemption. "Hillbilly Elegy" first landed on my reading list due to an article in my newsfeed that listed Vance's memoir as potential insight into the group that supposedly swung this year's election in favor of Donald Trump - poor, working-class whites in the country's rust belt. We do indeed get an insider's glimpse into the mindset and lifestyle of the poor, white communities in Appalachia and surrounding regions. Yet politics and analysis is minimal, so any link between the group in question and our president is left mostly as an exercise for the reader. The book is fascinating on many levels, the least of which was the dichotomy between the strong family ties upon which the hillbillies draw their strength and honor, and the dysfunction, cheating, brawling, and deep-seated anger present in their everyday lives. Blood is indeed, thicker than water. To me, the real question is just how we break the cycle of poverty and bad choices. One particular story Vance relays typifies the scenario played out over and over in his community. A young man with a pregnant girlfriend landed a decent job in a tile warehouse. This man was chronically late, missed work at least once a week, and took hour-long bathroom breaks. Though warned repeatedly, his behavior did not change. Yet when he was finally fired, he lashed out at the manager for being inconsiderate of his difficult home situation (which, of course, he created in the first place!). This mindset of blaming others is very prevalent throughout the book. The author, however, places some of the blame at the foot of the conservative rhetoric - instead of pushing the poor to engage their issues, "the message of the right is increasingly: It’s not your fault that you’re a loser; it’s the government’s fault." I think this is a bit of a cop out, and to be honest, struck me as pandering to liberal elite that runs most of the media in this country. I would suggest that the creation of our massive welfare state, and the dependence of the poor on government handouts with little to no accountability is much more responsible for the poor's inability to truly confront their station in life. Similarly, Vance takes some time to disparage evangelical theology as taught by the church his dad attended. To be sure, there is often much to disparage. In fact, the suspicion of science and government held by his dad's church mirrors the attitude of many of my fellow evangelical brothers and sisters. Yet, the irony that his dad's home life was one of the few peaceful and stable families in his entire existence is not lost on Vance. In fact, he admits, "Dad embodied a phenomenon social scientists have observed for decades: Religious folks are much happier. Regular church attendees commit fewer crimes, are in better health, live longer, make more money, drop out of high school less frequently, and finish college more frequently than those who don’t attend church at all." Sometimes I think society at large wants the results of what they find in the church and organized religion, yet chafe at the thought of being told what to do, and what behavior is acceptable and what is not. The fact that possibly you can't get one without the other is a possibility our "enlightened" minds simply do not want to consider. And what is it, exactly, that these church-going people find at church? It's not a "phenomenon," as Vance categorizes it, but the power of Jesus Christ. I feel I would be remiss, as well, at this point not to push back against a sentiment Vance conveys as popular truth - evangelical churches are shedding members at an alarming rate. As a proof-point, he references an article from the Huffington Post that makes the tired claim that evangelicalism is being rejected by the current generation. Huffington Post, the darling child of hipsters and liberals everywhere, has never been a friend of evangelicals, and I would hope other, more balanced studies would be considered. The book, "Christians are Hate-Filled Hypocrites...And Other Lies You've Been Told" is a good place to start. Using strong scientific and statistical analysis, it directly refutes some of the very studies mentioned in the HP article. Anyway, I digress. Admittedly, conservative politics and the supposed failure of evangelicalism are overall a smaller focus in the book. For the most part, Vance simply recounts the story of his life, and that of his closest relatives. It is fascinating, heart-breaking, and often akin to watching the proverbial train wreck. In fact, I wonder if that is one reason the book has been so popular. For most of us, we can read about the dysfunction so prevalent in Vance's upbringing and pat ourselves on the back - we're not perfect, but at least we're not as bad as that Vance clan! Only near the end of the book, in Chapter 14, does Vance attempt some deeper analysis and retrospective thinking. And I would hope we would do the same. The situation surrounding poor, working-class whites in the Midwest, similar to that surrounding African Americans in urban settings, is complex and difficult, with no easy answers. But that doesn't mean we should't still be tackling these inconvenient issues. Everything from how we respond to the poor, to how we treat our spouse, is on the table. I appreciate Vance airing out his dirty laundry. I doubt many of us would want our family's deepest and darkest secrets to be exposed in a book for all to read. But in doing so, he gives us the opportunity to participate in the plight of an entire segment of our population that, until the last year, was rarely spoken of. --------------- I noticed desertcart and Goodreads have a slightly different meanings to their 5-point scale. I thought it was odd to have a different rating for the same book on two different sites, so I came up with my own scale below. For the record, it is fairly close to desertcart's scale, but allows me to be consistent between both sites. 5 - Fantastic. Life-altering. Maybe only 25 in a lifetime. 4 - Very good. 3 - Worth your time. 2 - Not very good. 1 - Atrocious

## Features

- #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER, NAMED BY THE TIMES AS ONE OF "6 BOOKS TO HELP UNDERSTAND TRUMP'S WIN" AND SOON TO BE A MAJOR-MOTION PICTURE DIRECTED BY RON HOWARD

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #18,104 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #23 in Political Leader Biographies #66 in Memoirs (Books) #91 in Women's Biographies |
| Customer Reviews | 4.4 out of 5 stars 125,026 Reviews |

## Images

![Hillbilly Elegy - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/911KoQFhQaL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A wonderful Book That I Highly Recommend!
*by X***O on May 10, 2026*

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis is a deeply personal, thought-provoking, and remarkably honest memoir that resonates strongly with anyone familiar with the culture, values, struggles, and resilience of Appalachian families and Eastern Kentucky heritage. As someone with roots and family connections tied closely to the Appalachian region, I found this book especially meaningful because it captures many of the realities that people from the region understand firsthand — the pride, loyalty, hardship, work ethic, family complexity, and generational challenges that are often misunderstood or overlooked by outsiders. J.D. Vance writes with authenticity and emotional depth while balancing personal storytelling with broader observations about family dynamics, economic struggle, cultural identity, addiction, opportunity, and social mobility. The memoir does not attempt to romanticize hardship, nor does it dismiss the strength and character found throughout Appalachian communities. Instead, it presents a nuanced and human portrayal of life within that culture. One of the strongest aspects of the book is its honesty. The stories feel genuine, personal, and at times difficult, yet they are also filled with resilience, humor, sacrifice, and determination. Many readers from Eastern Kentucky, Ohio Valley communities, and Appalachian backgrounds will likely recognize familiar experiences, attitudes, and family dynamics within its pages. The writing itself is engaging, intelligent, and accessible. The memoir moves naturally between personal history and larger social commentary without losing emotional connection to the people and places at the center of the story. It encourages reflection not only about Appalachian culture, but also about family responsibility, identity, opportunity, and perseverance. Whether one agrees with every perspective presented or not, Hillbilly Elegy remains an important and impactful memoir that contributes meaningfully to conversations about Appalachian America and working-class family life. It is a compelling, respectful, and emotionally powerful read that will resonate strongly with many readers who share similar roots and experiences.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ More questions than answers
*by J***R on August 12, 2017*

J.D. Vance chronicles his "upwardly mobile" journey from a dirt-poor boy in the backwoods of Kentucky, to a Yale-educated lawyer in Washington D.C. It is quite a journey, to be sure. J.D.'s story is one of family ties, bad choices, cyclical dysfunction, and in some cases, redemption. "Hillbilly Elegy" first landed on my reading list due to an article in my newsfeed that listed Vance's memoir as potential insight into the group that supposedly swung this year's election in favor of Donald Trump - poor, working-class whites in the country's rust belt. We do indeed get an insider's glimpse into the mindset and lifestyle of the poor, white communities in Appalachia and surrounding regions. Yet politics and analysis is minimal, so any link between the group in question and our president is left mostly as an exercise for the reader. The book is fascinating on many levels, the least of which was the dichotomy between the strong family ties upon which the hillbillies draw their strength and honor, and the dysfunction, cheating, brawling, and deep-seated anger present in their everyday lives. Blood is indeed, thicker than water. To me, the real question is just how we break the cycle of poverty and bad choices. One particular story Vance relays typifies the scenario played out over and over in his community. A young man with a pregnant girlfriend landed a decent job in a tile warehouse. This man was chronically late, missed work at least once a week, and took hour-long bathroom breaks. Though warned repeatedly, his behavior did not change. Yet when he was finally fired, he lashed out at the manager for being inconsiderate of his difficult home situation (which, of course, he created in the first place!). This mindset of blaming others is very prevalent throughout the book. The author, however, places some of the blame at the foot of the conservative rhetoric - instead of pushing the poor to engage their issues, "the message of the right is increasingly: It’s not your fault that you’re a loser; it’s the government’s fault." I think this is a bit of a cop out, and to be honest, struck me as pandering to liberal elite that runs most of the media in this country. I would suggest that the creation of our massive welfare state, and the dependence of the poor on government handouts with little to no accountability is much more responsible for the poor's inability to truly confront their station in life. Similarly, Vance takes some time to disparage evangelical theology as taught by the church his dad attended. To be sure, there is often much to disparage. In fact, the suspicion of science and government held by his dad's church mirrors the attitude of many of my fellow evangelical brothers and sisters. Yet, the irony that his dad's home life was one of the few peaceful and stable families in his entire existence is not lost on Vance. In fact, he admits, "Dad embodied a phenomenon social scientists have observed for decades: Religious folks are much happier. Regular church attendees commit fewer crimes, are in better health, live longer, make more money, drop out of high school less frequently, and finish college more frequently than those who don’t attend church at all." Sometimes I think society at large wants the results of what they find in the church and organized religion, yet chafe at the thought of being told what to do, and what behavior is acceptable and what is not. The fact that possibly you can't get one without the other is a possibility our "enlightened" minds simply do not want to consider. And what is it, exactly, that these church-going people find at church? It's not a "phenomenon," as Vance categorizes it, but the power of Jesus Christ. I feel I would be remiss, as well, at this point not to push back against a sentiment Vance conveys as popular truth - evangelical churches are shedding members at an alarming rate. As a proof-point, he references an article from the Huffington Post that makes the tired claim that evangelicalism is being rejected by the current generation. Huffington Post, the darling child of hipsters and liberals everywhere, has never been a friend of evangelicals, and I would hope other, more balanced studies would be considered. The book, "Christians are Hate-Filled Hypocrites...And Other Lies You've Been Told" is a good place to start. Using strong scientific and statistical analysis, it directly refutes some of the very studies mentioned in the HP article. Anyway, I digress. Admittedly, conservative politics and the supposed failure of evangelicalism are overall a smaller focus in the book. For the most part, Vance simply recounts the story of his life, and that of his closest relatives. It is fascinating, heart-breaking, and often akin to watching the proverbial train wreck. In fact, I wonder if that is one reason the book has been so popular. For most of us, we can read about the dysfunction so prevalent in Vance's upbringing and pat ourselves on the back - we're not perfect, but at least we're not as bad as that Vance clan! Only near the end of the book, in Chapter 14, does Vance attempt some deeper analysis and retrospective thinking. And I would hope we would do the same. The situation surrounding poor, working-class whites in the Midwest, similar to that surrounding African Americans in urban settings, is complex and difficult, with no easy answers. But that doesn't mean we should't still be tackling these inconvenient issues. Everything from how we respond to the poor, to how we treat our spouse, is on the table. I appreciate Vance airing out his dirty laundry. I doubt many of us would want our family's deepest and darkest secrets to be exposed in a book for all to read. But in doing so, he gives us the opportunity to participate in the plight of an entire segment of our population that, until the last year, was rarely spoken of. --------------- I noticed Amazon and Goodreads have a slightly different meanings to their 5-point scale. I thought it was odd to have a different rating for the same book on two different sites, so I came up with my own scale below. For the record, it is fairly close to Amazon's scale, but allows me to be consistent between both sites. 5 - Fantastic. Life-altering. Maybe only 25 in a lifetime. 4 - Very good. 3 - Worth your time. 2 - Not very good. 1 - Atrocious

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ To the Bright and Shining Sun, Again
*by R***Z on July 3, 2017*

It may be that the most interesting thing about this book is its resonance. A coming-of-age blue collar memoir, it sits (nearly) atop the bestseller list and has drawn over 7,000 Amazon reviews. While it appears to focus on a singular phenomenon its impact has been generalized by the author and now touches tens of thousands of readers. The phenomenon is the migration of job-seeking Scots-Irish Appalachians to southwestern Ohio. I know this process intimately. My own parents were from Kentucky and settled in Cincinnati. We lived in what may be the epicenter of such migrations, a town called Norwood that is surrounded by Cincinnati. I described my experiences there in a memoir entitled THE BIGGEST CITY IN AMERICA (1999). Norwood was once home to a plethora of manufacturers, a few of which remain. U.S. Playing Card, Allis-Chalmers, American Laundry, the Fisher Body Plant (making Camaros), et al. drew workers from Appalachia who often held jobs there during the week and returned to Kentucky on the weekends. They huddled together in single homes; in Cincinnati poker parlance, a full house is a ‘full Norwood’. Now, Norwood has lost one third of its population; two of its three Catholic churches have closed and its manufacturing base has largely disappeared. What happens to people under such circumstances? Some survive, Charles Murray suggests, by maintaining social capital and making sound choices. They complete school, hold off on procreating until they are married, take a role in their community’s civic life and practice their religion. J.D. Vance lives betwixt and between. He knows the experience of the dysfunctional and he exemplifies the possibilities of escape and success. Throughout his book, but particularly in its second half, he reflects on the manner in which some choose drugs, promiscuity and dependency, while others sustain the foundational elements of life which protect them and their families. Another way to think about this (along with the decline of manufacturing and the reduction of blue-collar opportunities) is that the 1960’s offered freedom, but part of that freedom (drugs, free love) turned out to be cataclysmic for those who allowed themselves to be set adrift. The decline of job opportunities exacerbated that situation. So too, perhaps, did the expansion of the opportunities for government dependency. Working as a clerk bagging groceries, e.g., Vance reflects on those who work the food stamp system while others invest the labor that pays for it. This particular migration story is a powerful one. My Mizzou Chancellor, Brady Deaton, wrote his Wisconsin doctoral dissertation on it and our distinguished graduate, James Lee Burke, wrote a wonderful novel on the subject (TO THE BRIGHT AND SHINING SUN). Vance’s take on it succeeds for a number of reasons. First, the book is beautifully written and personally compelling. He offers us a privileged look into the strengths and dysfunctionalities of his own family. While the migration issue is susceptible to significant economic analysis, Vance puts living flesh on the bones of theory. He brings the story home to the reader as he explores the human hearts and souls which populate his narrative. We see real people, speaking real words and bleeding real blood. (I wish that he had included illustrations, but if you check out his Megyn Kelly interview clips you will see his beloved grandmother and sister and even catch a glimpse of his troubled mother.) He is honest with regard to his own experience. Four years in the Marine Corps help to stabilize his life and enable him to utilize his GI Bill benefits to attend Ohio State. An old Army friend of mine once said that his most gratifying work as a company commander was helping people who had never really belonged to anything actually do so. When he moves on from Ohio State to Yale law school he reveals his cultural naivete; he never really realized, e.g., that belts and shoes are supposed to match and when he was offered Sauvignon Blanc or Chardonnay at a recruitment dinner he chose the one that was easiest to pronounce. The book succeeds in part because it is a wonderful redemption story, but it is more complex than that. James Ellroy asked Dick Contino if he could write a novella about his life. What’s it about? Contino asked. “Heavily-compromised redemption,” Ellroy responded and Contino agreed. J.D. Vance’s redemption is not heavily-compromised, but it reveals the knife edge that he walked and the dangers that remain on the dark side, a side still inhabited by those he knows and loves. This may be the surprise hit of the year; the Harper editors who agreed to publish it were very shrewd to do so. The story gives heart to all and helps many find a voice that speaks for them.

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