Being a native of Eastern Kentucky, I was reluctant to read this book. It was a decent memoir about overcoming childhood hardship and trauma. I feel that the author over-generalizes what it means to be a "hillbilly." I grew up in the "holler" but I was not surrounded by the kind of behavior described in this book. Like the author, my maternal grandparents really were the primary adults in my life, but they were drama-free. My grandmother would have never told me to fight for honor, nor would she have ever used the coarse language that seemed the natural mode of communication in the author's home. I know that there ARE people who live this way, though. Having lived in a number of places, I can confidently say that there are people like that everywhere. I live nowhere near Appalachia now, but I'm surrounded by more poor, white, "redneck" people than ever. In the American West, these are "Cowboys" instead of hillbillies. I do not understand why one is a good thing and one is a bad thing since the behaviors are the same.