The main problem this book has is the misleading title and marketing surrounding it and I can understand why it was done; it sought to profit from the lack of understanding that a lot of people had on the "white working class" support of Donald Trump as a presidential candidate. However, this book does not reveal anything other than Vance's life growing up as a poor Hillbilly kid in Ohio. To be sure, Vance's memoir is very interesting, he's honest with his life story thus far and the cast of hillbilly characters were part charming and part entrancing. Vance himself is nothing hypnotic but the people in his life are; the star of the book (and he knows this) is his grandmother Mamaw who commanded the reader's attention from the moment she came on the page. 
 The reason I ended up disappointed is because I truly thought we were going to get some deep insightful and sociological knowledge of a group of people often misrepresented and we did not get there. There were times when Vance danced around this subject but in the end he stuck to what he knew and that was the life he had seen and the people he had known. I cannot fault him; I don't think he intended to go out and explain to people 'this is why white America voted for Trump', he just sought to tell you this is how me and others like me are growing up in these towns suffering from 'brain-drain' and lack of resources. 
 Vance makes no apologies on his past, his depiction of his mother is heart-wrenching and his home life incredibly unstable and he clearly acknowledges that if it were not for a few key people in his life he would never had 'made it'. Some of my favorite portions of the book was him discovering how people outside of his town and family lived a life; things we take for granted such as knowing how to apply for Financial Aid were completely foreign to him. To be sure, this is a book about poverty and the social situations poverty creates. Go in knowing this and not expecting anything else. 
 Since this book did not quench my thirst I shall continue with others and perhaps I might come to the realization that no explanation will ever be satisfactory; the disappointment is still to great.