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Critical Analysis Of Nickel And Dimed

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Growing up, my family and I were extremely poor. The neighborhood I grew up in was referred to as felony flats. There were many nights that my mom wouldn’t eat just so there was enough food to feed me and my siblings. There were times where there would be no food in the house and we’d have to go to a food pantry. My mother was a teen mom with three children and no education. To make ends meet, my father would occasionally steal checks out of people’s mailboxes. My mom didn’t know he was doing it, but was desperate for any money that he brought in to keep a roof over our head, and the tiniest bit of food in our cupboards. As I was reading The Residue Years, I felt instantly connected to the characters in the novel because I could relate on many levels to Champ and his family’s struggles of living in poverty. The critical review “Nickel and Dimed,” written by Roxane Gay was an accurate account of the novel. A family living in poverty, struggling with addiction, all while trying to keep their family together. Roxane Gay is right that this is a story about how poverty keeps Champ and Grace stuck in the same place, and that their journey to home always out of reach. I believe she is wrong in suggesting that Jackson’s empathy for the characters lessened the plot. The beginning of The Residue Years starts at the end of the story. In the prologue, we get to see what ultimately happens to Champ and his mother, Grace. Champ is in prison for possessing drugs, while his mother has just

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