While I couldn’t really relate to the story, I really appreciared the experience reading it and getting to understand what small town life can be like for some people.

I feel like I can’t really give a review on this because it’s not something I’ve ever experienced and it feels wrong to comment on it, but I will say I did like how the author dealt with some of the topics at hand and I feel like although there were a lot of trigger warnings, they were dealt with very well and that’s something that’s incredibly important for me when going into a book.

The Forgotten Girls by Monica Potts is a well-written and insightful book that sheds light on the overlooked struggles faced by women in rural areas, particularly in Clinton, Arkansas, where the life expectancy of America's least educated white women has recently been shrinking due to what she terms "diseases of despair" such as suicide, drunken driving, and overdoses. The book is a blend of memoir and research, a profound and empathetic account of the struggles of poor, rural white women in America, and the challenges they face in escaping poverty and addiction.

Potts intertwines her own life story with that of her childhood friend, Darci Brawner, to provide a window into the lives of poor, rural white women in America. While Potts managed to break free from the constraints of her upbringing and pursue a career in journalism, Darci remained trapped in a cycle of despair. By sharing these contrasting narratives, Potts illustrates the limited choices faced by women like Darci and the profound impact these choices have on their lives.

Potts explores how larger forces, such as family, education, religion, and politics, shape the lives of rural women, and highlights the pervasive culture of evangelical Christianity, which can inadvertently steer girls towards early marriage and motherhood. This cultural dynamic contributes to a cycle of addiction and domestic abuse, further perpetuating the challenges faced by these women.

The Forgotten Girls is a poignant and impassioned narrative that highlights the wasted potential and shattered lives of rural white women. It is an appeal and channelled anger towards a system that continues to fail and exploit those desperately seeking a way out. It is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the complex social and economic issues facing America today.

This was such a thought provoking read. a memoir about two best friends who grew up in rural America where poverty, drugs, lack of opportunities and general hopelessness is a normal part of life.
A fascinating read about how two best friends and the very different paths they found themselves on despite having the same start in life.
This book focuses on a number of factors that play a part in women falling through the cracks of society such as extreme poverty, substance abuse (particularly opioids), incarceration & the influence of religion (particularly when it comes to sex education).
While this is a sad, tragic story focusing on all the bad aspects & hopelessness of life, the author writes with such empathy and understanding.
This is a story that will stay with you long after you turn the last page.

Thank you to #Netgalley and #PenguinPressUK for granting me access to this arc in exchange for an honest review.

The Forgotten Girls is a gripping account of friendship and coming of age in rural America. Potts is ruthless in examining the reasons for disconnect and drug abuse in rural communities, often linked to poverty and lack of opportunities. Sadly, this has been the case for so long now and real societal change is always so far out of reach. This book highlights the need of very real people for systematic change across all of society.

This book follows the authors journey to reconnect with her childhood best friend while recalling her own upbringing in small-town America. A fascinated read which gave insight into a society whose behavior I often find incompressible.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free e-copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

This is a memoir of sorts with an interesting premise. Ms Potts grew up in Clinton, in back woods America and was best friends with Darci. I grew up in urban west of Scotland south of Glasgow. And yet there was a universal message in this book which struck me. Choices we make, and ambitions we hold, change us more than we might realise. The author goes off to university and builds a very successful life for herself.

Ms Potts researches poverty and its impact on women’s lives and goes back to Clinton to catch up with her childhood friend. Never could someone be so diametrically opposed to the person she could have been. No spoilers here but Darci makes some bad decisions. The heartbreaking thing is that no one in authority stepped in when she was a scatty teenager to give her a shake and put her back on the right path.

The author ‘helps’ Darci and there is an unavoidable voyeurism, and an element of ‘who’s using who’, but also an honesty and pride in the story of poverty and people left behind.

An American story but with elements lots of people will identify with.

I was given a copy of this book by NetGalley

I would really recommend this one – The Forgotten Girls is a memoir-slash-journalistic study, documenting the life of the author, Monica Potts, and her childhood best friend Darci, and using this lens to interrogate the social ills and decreasing life expectancy of rural white women in the US. Monica and Darci grew up in a very small town in Arkansas, and were both clever, academically successful, ambitious girls from working-class backgrounds. Yet while Monica graduated from an excellent university and became a journalist in New York, Darci became stuck in their hometown, another statistic of how society and the state are failing poor rural people. I love memoirs about ordinary people: there's something so interesting finding out about people's lives. While that was the part that probably appealed to me most about this book, it's also a great look at the current state of society in rural America, and how so many toxic forces can combine to limit a person's potential. Although my upbringing was very different to Monica and Darci's, there were parts I recognised from my own life – mostly to do with school, and the difference between 'rich' and 'poor' schools in equipping students for uni (although my school was nowhere near as bad as Monica's!) Anyway, this is a really good read and thanks very much to Penguin for letting me read it through NetGalley!

A memoir of two friends raised in rural America where hopelessness, poverty and drugs are considered normal. Potts managed to break the cycle for herself but sadly her friend didn't. Very sad at times. A thought provoking read that is very sad at times.

This is a fascinating memoir that looks into the lives of the author and her childhood best friend Darci, and the factors that led them down intensely different paths, with Monica escaping their small, conservative town, and Darci staying. It’s an incredibly well-told story, with cinematic narration that really evokes the atmosphere of the predominantly white, poor, strictly religious setting. The book examines factors such as religious-centred sex education, extreme poverty, and substance abuse, and reveals how these can all contribute to women disappearing through the cracks, and being unable to leave such spaces. This opens up a dialogue on the broader issue of the white American underclass, and how the prevalent religious message in these communities is of women living under their husband’s authority. This ultimately can have dire consequences, such as Darci becoming ensnared in the cycle of poverty, opioid abuse, and incarceration. The memoir is handled with compassion and empathy, and attempts to alleviate the judgement that can be placed on women who get themselves in such situations, instead emphasising how the system is quick to judge these women without considering the factors in place which make it so hard for them to follow any other path. I recommend this book as it highlights the systemic issues working against poor American women, whilst also showing the positive female bonds that are formed, and the ways in which these women come together to support each other.

A really thought provoking look into the human experience and how this can differ between two people with the same start in life.
Monica treats Darci with such tenderness it is really a beautiful read in places. And others a stark view of life in southern rural communities.

The Forgotten Girls really stayed with me after I finished it. It's hard to believe that it's a memoir because so much of what happens is incredibly tragic and sad to read. As someone growing up the same time as the girls in this book - but in the UK, rather than the American mid-west - I found it shocking to comprehend it was the same time frame. It sounded like something out of the 1950s. Girls getting married at 15 with their parent's consent. Teen mothers. The Church and its impact on beliefs and values.

Despite the lack of hope and uplift, I would recommend this book to anyone looking for first hand accounts of the effect of poverty, the church, and drugs is having on society.

An amazing memoir of a friendship of two young ladies who were academics and gifted. They dreamed of a better life. However they grew apart and one followed her dreams and the other spiraled into addiction.
It isn't all doom and gloom and I'm nit into spoilers!
The memoir continues on and the do meet up again. This book really sticks with you!
Read it today!

A really tender yet unflinching portrait of hopelessness and unconditional love in small town America.

A truly interesting real life account of two girls growing up in rural Arkansas. An ultra conservative and religious upbringing. A truly different side to the American dream, this area is wracked with poverty and drugs and alcohol issues. Both Monica and Darci are gifted academically and form a strong friendship based on their love of education and dreams to leave Arkansas, travel and leave behind the poverty of their hometown. One leaves and one stays. This is a fascinating account of the different directions and lifestyles the girls achieve. A fascinating insight into rural, pure, mid west USA.

The Forgotten Girls is a candid and enlightening narrative that sheds light on the challenges faced by young women in rural communities. However, I found it difficult to personally connect with the book, particularly in fully immersing myself in Marci's life, one of the central characters of the memoir. Despite the author's skillful writing, I struggled to establish a deep emotional bond or engage fully with Marci's experiences. While acknowledging this personal disconnect, I appreciate Potts' efforts to bring attention to the hardships endured by marginalized individuals in rural America, underscoring the importance of their stories and the need for greater understanding and support.

Thanks to the writer, publisher and Netgalley for the ARC copy. I am sure many readers will associate with the circumstances.

Fans of Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 will love The Forgotten Girls. It is a poignant and sharp non-fiction novel that explores the life of author, Monica Potts and her childhood friend Darci and questions what events in their lives set them on different paths and why Monica left town but Darci never escaped.

I loved reading this book for it's active and fiction style writing which sets the scene of Arkansas cinematically as we relive the women's childhood of loving to learn and dreaming of escaping their small town. The escapism is something which resonates with me a lot, being from a small working class town too with a lot of people around me working retail or building- not fancy office jobs. The Forgotten Girls explores religion, domestic violence, substance abuse and poverty, how this affects women and how these women disappear through the cracks.

I loved that Darci was involved in the production and participated in interviews and the inclusion of statistics in the footnotes really helps to bulk out the weight of the facts. Looking at the book ban and religion based sex education and in turn how this affected the lives of women in Arkansas and the sharing of diaries between best friends, this book is a hard hitting research piece which reflects the comfort and closeness of friendship and mutual confusion at the state of the world.

The book also looks at poverty and weaves in the intricate ways that not having money can affect women- from getting stuck in relationships, not having access to abortion care and not being told of the financial aid that could get you out the city and into a good university. For me, these things are something that crosses borders and not only is still happening now but also happens in my town- specifically with university funding where we are told that getting into debt is bad and a waste of time but not told until later that actually the debt isn't really "real debt" and you could survive and even thrive after university without your name in red. My mum didn't understand getting into debt for a degree that I might not use, but didn't understand that the debt is treated differently to a bank loan and it really doesn't matter when it gets written off. But for the rich kids...money is no option and it's fun to pretend to be poor.

The Forgotten Girls is a trip down memory lane for the author who returns to see where life has taken Darci and other girls of her age who didn't leave Arkansas, and Monica is faced with Darci in and out of prison and unfolds the mystery through interviewing friends and family of her and Darci to find out, what gets you out of small towns, and what traps you in them?

did not finish - unfortunately found it quite dull to read and lost interest very quickly! i'm sure others more interested in the themes would enjoy it more, but unfortunately, not my cup of tea

Publisher's description: Growing up gifted and working-class in the foothills of the Ozarks, Monica and Darci became fast friends. Bonding over a shared love of learning, they pored over the giant map in their classroom, tracing their fingers over the world that awaited them, vowing to escape their broken town. In the end, Monica left Clinton for university and fulfilled her dreams. Darci, along with many in their circle of friends, did not.

Years later, working as a journalist covering poverty, Monica discovers what she already intuitively knew about the women in Arkansas. Their life expectancy had steeply declined -- the sharpest such fall in a century. As she returns to Clinton to report the story, she reconnects with Darci, and finds that her once talented and ambitious best friend is now a statistic: a single mother of two, addicted to meth, jobless and nearly homeless. Deeply aware that Darci's fate could have been hers, she retraces the moments in each of their lives that led such similar women toward such different destinies. Why did Monica make it out while Darci became ensnared in a cycle of poverty and opioid abuse?

What I thought

This is described as an American story, but it could equally apply to the UK. I often wonder why the destiny of people with similar backgrounds and education can vary so greatly. I've always assumed it was down to character or personality. Darci's story was apparently quite common among their peers. It was Monica who deviated from the norm.

The whole issue of the American white underclass is echoed here, particularly among young white working class males, who are the worst performing ethnic group. 75% fail to achieve five good GCSE grades (source: Sunday Times).

In Darci and Monica's community, religion also played a large part in destiny. Potts is contemptuous of the local Baptist church that rains judgment down on young women for having sex outside marriage while viewing the conception of any child as part of God’s plan. For women, the message is clear: they must live under God’s authority and that of the men in their lives.

I admired Potts for not taking a patronizing view of Darci and their cohorts, as she was entitled to do having graduated from university and forged a successful career. She is always scrupulously balanced and nuanced in her reporting. The entitled western world needs to stop turning a blind eye to communities where addiction, violence, sexual abuse and neglect are rife.

This book is published on April 27. Thanks to Penguin UK and NetGalley for the advance reader copy.

"The Forgotten Girls" by Monica Potts is a non-fiction book that explores the lives of young women in rural America who are often overlooked and neglected by society.

Potts tells the stories of several women from the Ozarks region of Arkansas who face significant challenges and obstacles in their lives. Many of them come from families with a history of poverty and drug addiction, and they struggle to make ends meet and provide for their families. Some of them have experienced abuse and trauma, and have few resources to turn to for help.

Through these stories, Potts highlights the systemic issues that contribute to the marginalization of rural communities, including a lack of access to healthcare, education, and economic opportunity. She also examines the political and cultural forces that have shaped the region's history and continue to impact the lives of its residents.

Despite the challenges they face, the women in "The Forgotten Girls" are resilient and resourceful. They form close bonds with each other and find ways to support each other through their struggles. Potts shows that even in the most difficult circumstances, there is hope and strength to be found in human connection and community.

Overall, "The Forgotten Girls" is a powerful and moving book that sheds light on an often-overlooked corner of America. Potts's writing is compassionate and insightful, and her subjects are portrayed with empathy and dignity. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in issues of social justice, rural poverty, and the human experience.

The E-Book could be improved and more user-friendly, such as links to the chapters, and no significant gaps between words. Some text written has been typed in red and a cover for the book would be better. It is very document-like instead of a book. A star has been deducted because of this.

This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and I would read more of their work. The book cover is eye-catching and appealing and would spark my interest if in a bookshop. Thank you very much to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

The Forgotten Girls
This is a book concerned with childhood friendship and the flipside of the American Dream. Anyone can achieve it but the odds are stacked against many of them. The author, Monica Potts, a journalist, returned to her home town of Clinton in Arkansas close to the Ozarks to find out what happened to her childhood best friend, Darci. They were both bright, lively and keen to escape Clinton. But only one of them did. What happened to Darci and to some of their classmates?
As Monica says, ‘the flip side of American independence is a tendency to abandon people to their fate.’ She moves back to the town she escaped from and begins to interview classmates and Darci. The latter flits through the narrative in a messy, chaotic life as she manages briefly to get off drugs, ends up back on them, goes into another relationship, finds a job and then loses it. Monica wonders if Darci’s ‘messy life (was a)….fear of being too settled, too trapped.’ Darci did not graduate from high school and ended up in bad relationships with her children being brought up by their maternal grandmother. In some cases in the book, the children repeat the mistakes of their parents. However, we hear very little of Monica’s life after leaving Clinton and I would have liked to have read more about it.
She recalls her childhood and adolescence in Clinton which still is a conservative town with the local churches and religion having a huge influence and exerting social control by banning books. This is the 1980’s/1990’s and it’s a time of purity rings and going along with God’s plan for you. It’s preordained so don’t try to change it. In one of the most poignant scenes in the book after Monica’s younger sister Ashley tragically dies in a car crash, mourners try to console her by saying that her death was pre-ordained by God. It’s this kind of thinking, in my opinion, that keeps people trapped in their situation as they feel they can’t escape and there is no choice.
Like most small towns, Clinton doesn’t like outsiders either. Monica and Darci parade in the latest fashions from the grunge era to the derision of their classmates. Ashley is diagnosed with Tourette’s syndrome and has a hard time. And yet after her death people remembers her differently with real affection as if she had changed in some way. There is the double standard about girls sleeping around and teenage pregnancies. With the latter, there is also the status and value of motherhood once the baby is born.
Clinton has the same problems as some UK rural communities: lack of employment as by the end of the book most local employers have left the town. Drugs such as fentanyl take over from Oxycontin and heroin as it’s cheaper and easier to obtain.
Monica’s mother wanted her to escape from Clinton and did not want her daughters to be trapped in the town’s tight constricts. But for Monica, she finds out by chance that she is eligible for financial aid to go to college. Would this information have made a difference to Darci and other classmates? Monica sees that high school is divided into those who are going to college and those who aren’t. She will have to make her own way.
It’s Darci who contacts Monica via Facebook and at the end of the book there is a genuine acknowledgement of their friendship as they were growing up. I did the same with my oldest childhood friend as I wondered what had happened to her.
The book is interspersed with some truly shocking statistics such as that poor white rural women are dying 5 years earlier than their counterparts a generation ago. It’s a ‘rapid drop in life expectancy and the most sustained in a generation’. These deaths have been attributed to drug overdoses, suicides and alcoholism and described as ‘deaths of despair.’ This is disturbing reading as are other statistics throughout the book but there are no easy solutions. There are many reasons why people don’t leave their rural communities and these are touched on in the book. They include supporting their families and being tied to the land.
The Forgotten Girls is not a book with easy answers. At times it’s auto biographical, at other times it’s a social commentary, and also a discussion of how people slip through the net and have their lives go in a different direction. Low expectations, especially for girls, the need to earn money, not moving or studying far from home, ill fated relationships and poverty all combine to keep people in the same place. Near the end, Darci’s mother, Virginia, is convicted of embezzling £173,000 from her employer to ‘pay the bills.’
My copy had some proof reading errors and in one place made the paragraph unreadable.
Sometimes this is not an easy book to read and I wouldn’t say that I enjoyed it but as an exploration of another side of the American Dream and of a childhood friendship it was fascinating and, at times, heartbreaking reading.
My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an ARC.