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Maid by Stephanie Land was not the book I expected it to be. As a memoir, it shines a light on a very broken system. A system where being poor, no matter how hard you work, is essentially criminalizes. A system where the more hours you work, the less you can feed your child. A system where just buying milk comes with layers of bureaucracy and shame.

Land tells the story of what she did to survive with her toddler daughter after leaving an abusive relationship. She opens up about her fractured familial relationships, and what she felt she had to do to give her daughter Mia the best life possible under very challenging circumstances.

While reading this book, my main feeling was stress. stress as she mentally figured exactly how much money she had in her bank account at any given time. Stress as she found and lost jobs. Stress at the situations that found her time and time again.

I don’t know what I was expecting when I read this book, but whatever it was, I found the book to be not quite it. It was an easy enough read, and there were emotions throughout, but mostly I felt like I was just moving along in the drudgery with Land.

(268 pgs)

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