Let's be honest here, by the time I got to this book, it had been lauded by so many people that I knew it was either going to blow my mind or fall completely short. Strangely enough, it fell somewhere in the middle. 
 On multiple occasions, I was reminded of Colin Woodard's American Nations, which explores the cultural differences in our country through geography and the regions' first settlers. According to his map of America, I grew up on the border between the Deep South and Greater Appalacia and have spent the rest of my life on the lines between Greater Appalacia, the Midlands, and Yankeedom. Scot-Irish settlers shaped the culture of Greater Appalacia (which includes large portions of Tennessee, West Virginia, and Kentucky among others), and that is consistently alluded to in Hillbilly Elegy. This is the land of Hatfields and McCoys, a land that is fairly distrustful of authority, a land where the people hold their family's honor above all else. 
 J.D. Vance put a specific story on what I already had a vague understanding of thanks to Woodard's book. His anecdotes fluctuated between amusing to downright horrifying. He constantly mentions that his success is thanks to the support of his Maamaw, who was a wonderfully flawed yet admirable woman. 
 My issues with this story came with Vance's occasional belittling of other people who grew up in similar situations. While he does a nice job exposing their hypocrisy (for example, a man blaming a lost job on the economy when in reality he was rarely on time for work if he showed up at all), I think the overall image of laziness could allow some to just perpetuate stereotypes. Also, his description of Obama was kind of bizarre. While it is true that Obama did not connect with Vance's demographic because Obama basically exemplified the power of education, something which the "hillbillies" had very little access to, he did so in a way that I thought somewhat undermined Obama's accomplishments. 
 I also think it is interesting to see the criticism from other self-proclaimed hillbillies. Vance now writes this story as an outsider, and it is difficult to say that he truly represents these people. His condescension towards blue-collar works can make this hard to swallow at times, and I imagine that comes off as a personal affront if you work in one of those positions, especially if you possess the confrontational spark that Vance constantly mentions to be firmly engrained in hillbilly mentality. 
 I definitely think this book is worth a read for most adults, but I don't know if it is quite as revolutionary as it is being billed as. That being said, while this is not a YA book, I think that many of my students could easily pick this up-- I read it in a day, and there is very little that makes this book challenging. It's a memoir, but it could also direct students to more in-depth studies of how culture in America varies from region to region. I would just caution that this is one story among many untold stories.