Christian Livermore grew up a shy little girl in a turbulent family sunk in poverty, violence, substance abuse and mental illness. She ate government cheese, suffered from malnutrition and struggled to defend her body against threats both outside the house and within it. And even though she made it out, she has suffered a lifetime of consequences since: excruciating health problems, fear and shame. Especially shame. In We Are Not Okay, Livermore's deeply personal and moving essays explore what it means to grow up poor in America and ask whether it is possible to outrun the shame it grinds into your bones. She excoriates the inhumanity in how the United States treats its poor and asks the nation to confront how growing up poor in America brutalizes us and warps our perspective on ourselves, on other people and on the world. She concludes with a rather startling suggestion: the dissolution of the United States.

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