Book Portfolio (Q2) Nickel and Dimed

The book that I read for my book portfolio was Nickel and Dimed by Barbra Ehrenreich. This book is a "Diary" type book thatEhrenreich wrote from her experience "On (Not) Getting By in America". In Nickle and Dimed a middle aged women went from a well paying job to living on minimum wage. She lived in three different states and had to get a job. This book was a very good book and it made me think a lot about how people lived in the past and how they live now. That is why I think the theme of this book is if you want to be able to have money than you need more than a minimum wage paying job.

I think that this is the theme of this book because this book supports the theme that I chose. I think that this is the theme because in this book Barbara is trying to get by on minimum wage and she has a family. On the cover of this book is sates "On (Not) Getting By in America, I think that this supports the theme. This supports the theme because it is very hard to support yourself and someone else on just minimum wage in America. I could have chosen many quotes from this book to support the theme that I chose but the one that I chose sums it all up. This book made me realize how it is so hard to live in America on minimum wage.

This book doesn't really have a history but it made me think a lot about the minimum wage rates and poverty rates in America throughout the years. Minimum wage is the lowest amount of money you can make at a federal job. The minimum wage rates has changed many many times over the years. Another thing that made me think a lot while I was reading this book was the poverty rates in America. Poverty is when the money you make is less than what you need to live. This book made me think about these two things because if this project was done about 10 - 20 years before Barbara probably wouldn't have faced many of the problems she did. I think that is true because the value of money is a lot more now than it would have been 10 - 20 years before.

In conclusion Nickel and Dimed was a very good book and it taught me a lot about things that I didn't think were that much of a problem. I would recommend this book to anyone who takes money for granted. I would also recommend this book to anyone who likes books about real life problems. I think that it was a hard thing for Barbara to do but it was well worth it.