Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth by Sarah Smarsh 

Sarah Smarsh was born a fifth generation Kansas wheat farmer on her paternal side, and the product of generations of teen mothers on her maternal side.  Through her experiences growing up on a farm thirty miles west of Wichita, we are given a unique and essential look into the lives of poor and working-class Americans living in the heartland.  During Sarah's turbulent childhood in Kansas in the 1980s and 1990s, she enjoyed the freedom of a country childhood but observed the painful challenges of poverty such as untreated medical conditions, unsafe job conditions, abusive relationships, and limited resources and information that underscore the class divide in our country.