Book Info
Genre: Nonfiction, Memoir
LibraryThing: https://www.librarything.com/work/13493339/t/Bootstrapper-From-Broke-to-Badass-on-a-Northern-Michigan-Farm
Acquired from: Digger’s, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
Discarded: In Unnumbered LFL, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
Started reading: August 18, 2025
Finished reading: August 21, 2025
Review (written Aug 21)
I think it’s easy to judge someone when they seem to be making multiple bad decisions in a row so I don’t want to get into all the things I think she did wrong (most of which stemmed from her inability to ask for help) and how she never changed through the course of the memoir. (I’m not sure if she was trying to point out how stupid she was being or if she was trying to brag about making it without help; either way I’m judging her. Silently. Mostly silently.) (Edit: if you want more specifics about the things I’m judging her for, this review from Ella_Jill on LibraryThing pretty much covers it.)
The tone did kind of change though– the early chapters had a more witty biting humor to them and the last chapters were much more melancholy. Which makes sense, because of course she’d be sad about losing all the things she lost. But I don’t know that I’d say those last chapters “matched” with the first few chapters, as such. I think perhaps the biting humor ones were sold individually as stories to magazines and the melancholy ones came after, so that’s the disconnect.
I’m not sure I’d recommend this for people interested in farming/homesteading OR Michigan-based memoirs, but perhaps if you’re interested instead in post-divorce life then this would be a good book for you.
Reading Updates (Aug 17-21)
Page 0: The Forest Unseen is too brainy to read straight thru, so I’m alternating it with this memoir which is about a newly divorced single mom on a farm in Northern Michigan.
Can’t find a bookmark so I’m using a Goodwill receipt from Chicago.
Page 10 (maybe): Wow 19 years married and now divorced, that’s sad.
Page 54: The Moosewood Cookbook mentioned! I have a (digital) copy, but I’m bad at actually reading it. They do have a lot of great vegetarian/vegan recipes though; I should check to see if they have a suggestion for cucumbers…
Page 77:
Until he topped 140 pounds or so, Rocky’s MO was to tunnel under the fence, roll sideways like a greased watermelon, air-paddle his girth up out of the dirt until he was free of the wire, and then it was full speed ahead toward the deep cover dreamed of by fugitives everywhere: the forest. Pigs are the Indy race cars of the livestock world and can work up some serious speed if allowed to bust into the open.
lol
Page 88: Kinda wish she said already why they’re divorcing, especially since she doesn’t want her kids to spend any time with their father but hasn’t said why except that being without them will break her— but they’re going across the street to their other parent? Also I wish people went to therapy more tbh
Page 106: I’m still thinking about the half-off bread store. Half price for them is $0.80 which means a regular price loaf is $1.60. $1.60 in 2005 money is the equivalent of $2.65 today— and that’s for bakery bread, not cheap white loaf from the grocery store. I looked up a local bakery here in Ann Arbor and 1lb loaf costs $8. Makes me want to cry…
Page 138: She’s been sick for over a week with swine flu and they ran out of food, and nobody thinks to ask the dad for help? Not even the kids?
Page 175: Her potential love interest having his divorce hearing the exact same day as her divorce hearing is the stuff of romcoms!
Word List
- Thundersnow: “A thunderstorm accompanied by snow, rather than rain or hail.”
See also: Books Read (2025) / All Reading Logs
tozka | 📖 reading log: bootstrapper by mardi jo link
Books Read (2025) [pixietails.club]