This is a very readable memoir.
The language is harsh in places but helps to portray what the author is saying.
It may be a bit too political for some readers.
Well worth a read

I have nothing but admiration for Cash and her resilience, though I'm sorry that she's needed to draw on so much of it during her life. Everyone needs to read this book, it's an honest and gritty and powerful survival story. Her story, which no doubt is like that of many others (sadly), needs to be heard and not forgotten and ignored.

Sometimes, when there’s an article posted on Twitter about foodbanks, or people having to choose whether to heat their homes or eat, I read the comments and wonder what’s wrong with people. I can guarantee that someone will say something about flat screen TVs (all TVs have flat screens), or mobile phones (you have to have internet access to apply for jobs, and access information and services relating to universal benefit, and a mobile is often the cheapest way) or alcohol and cigarettes, the lottery or scratch cards (no evidence that people in poverty buy these disproportionatly, and even if they do, well, god forbid the poor should have any pleasure, just sit on the floor and stare at the wall). Anyway, the ignorance, smugness, and lack of compassion always makes me furious. These people should read this book.

Cash Carraway tells it exactly like it is, with an intelligence and wit that makes reading this book bearable. Because without her skill as a writer, it would be unremittingly depressing. Which a life in poverty in the UK undoubtedly is.

The frustration of moving from temporary home to temporary home, of trying to find work that fits in with childcare, the sheer exhaustion of just trying to keep your head above water, the author relates these things with an honesty that is raw and brave, and with a scathing humour and a justifiable anger.

I’m currently reading ‘The Nanny State Made Me’ by Stuart Maconie, partly a celebration of the funded NHS, libraries, education, that my generation enjoyed and benefitted from. Had these things still been available, rather than completely decimated by recent policies, you can’t help thinking that Cash Carraway would have had a much better chance in life, that she would have had access to resources, to care, that would have set her on her path earlier, that she wouldn’t have had to have gone through what she has gone through, and write about it, to be a successful writer and journalist.

I come from a working class background, and I know first-hand the benefits of libraries, and student grants, and access to education. I have also had first-hand experience of the NHS providing lifesaving care for my child – goodness knows what would have happened without it. Reading of experiences like Cash Carraway’s and reading the way people like her are demonised and blamed for society’s ills really brings home just how much in danger we are of losing these things for good. I also wonder how much my life may have been like hers had I been born twenty or thirty years ago rather than fifty-odd years ago.

It’s not just a blessing for the author that her writing and her talent has been recognised, it’s a blessing for the rest of us – her work is so important, and deserves to be shared. She’s a real talent, and I do hope she’ll write more of her experiences.

A truly harrowing real life story about life under a conservative government that i could totally relate to.

A brilliantly honest, funny and deeply moving account of Cash Carraway's life living in poverty. She really evokes what life is like for her and her daughter as she struggles to cope with the hardships she has to face. The writing is excellent, Cash Carraway's personality radiates from every page. Skint Estate is a powerful book that everyone must read.

This book certainly tells it how it is. A real hones insight into the damage being done to the poorest people in our society. Certainly an eye opener.

Wow, this is pretty hard hitting. I think there are a lot of people around who would benefit from reading this. It might help understand a life different from their own.
More of these voices should be heard.

This is a heartbreaking read on which Cash Carraway highlights her struggle to survive as a broke single mother on London’s streets. She documented the lengths she went to keep a roof over her head while trying to raise her child alone. She was treated with utter disdain, undervalued in all she worked at, she even worked as a sex worker to try keep her little family off the streets. My heart broke for her and all others who have to endure her plight, who still do today. It highlighted so many injustices of the modern world. It is a must read for anyone who is blind to the existence of poverty and deprivation in the modern day UK.

This is a very honest but very harsh memoir of a women who lives on the poverty line as a single mum to her daughter.

It’s a tragic but gripping read full of all the emotions under the sun.

A difficult read but also an essential one.

This was such a good book. Raw, shocking, important. A first hand account of poverty in Britain. A must read.

I felt that this book was less a study of poverty, and more an insight into the lifelong detrimental impact of abuse on children.

Cash made a series of poor decisions in her 20s, which trapped her into poverty. It is difficult to see that anyone but her was responsible for these decisions, but she spends a great deal of time expressing anger at the Tories. She is angry that the Tories didn't give her a house and an income. I found this lack of self reflection and sense of entitlement irritating, as I did her lack of understanding about economics, namely that public resources are finite and that no Government can afford to give everyone a nice house and money in a location of their choice.

I have no doubt that Cash's terrible childhood was the real reason for her endless poor decision making, and also at the root of her anger. My patience began to wear a little thin after learning that she defaulted on the rents of all the houses she was evicted from, with little concern for the impact of this on her landlords, and also that she takes her child out of school in order to tour. Wouldn't we all like to take our children out of school to progress our careers.

Despite being irritated by this book, particularly the second half, I felt a great deal of sympathy towards Cash. She writes beautifully, her work just needs more self reflection and less politics.

I wish her the happiness, peace and success she and her precious child deserve.

A well-written and eye-opening account of the author's journey into motherhood and how she fought to look after herself and her child.

This is a difficult book to review because how can you say “I enjoyed this” when it is a warts and all look at what living in poverty is really like in Britain. This book is brutal, honest, angry, infuriating, but also funny, affirming, and beautiful. Ms Carraway has been many things in her life but she is definitely a writer. It has needed someone who has lived her life with her ability to describe it, to really capture what life is like when you are reliant on zero hours contracts, benefits and casual work in strip clubs and peep shows. There are some funny scenes but also casual violence, cruelty and the mother from hell. Ms Carraway did not stand much chance of success until she fell pregnant.

But Ms Carraway says very clearly this is her story: “There is no singular voice for any demographic, as individuals we can only truly ever represent ourselves.” She explains how things cost more when you are poor and you are only ever one late payment away from homelessness. She says “People sat in cinemas crying after watching I, Daniel Blake, knowing these things were true, yet they elected the Tories for the third time.” It is also true that theatres and bookshops are full of stories written by people of privilege because the really poor have other priorities in their lives, therefore we need Ms Carraway and the other recent working-class voices to remind us that life isn’t how it looks to the majority. There are 4 million children living in poverty in the UK and it took a young man born in that environment who has now “made it” to have the power to speak to government about free school meals during lockdown. These kids are starving. One particularly poignant vignette in the book is Cash’s daughter accepting some KFC from the local drug dealer despite having just been well fed at the food bank. “She never refuses food these days even when she’s full up because she never knows when the next proper meal is going to be.”

Everyone in power or who votes Conservative should read this - but if they do, they’ll probably feel like some reviewers that Ms Carraway has exaggerated or made things up. I know she doesn’t need to as the reality is strong on every page - especially the incident with the £50 note.

A final quote:- “...silence me, I always remember this: being able to survive in the conditions in which woman like us are forced to live, means that we are resourceful and powerful in a way they'll never be able to fathom.”

I applaud Ms Carraway for her honesty and wish her and her daughter a future of peace and plenty. I was given a copy of this book by Netgalley in return for an honest review.

Brutal, blistering and memorable - a memoir that will make you wince at times and at other moments will make you want to start a revolution. Working class stories are rarely told like this and I for one am happy that this book exists.

The most graphic account of what it's really like to be poor in Britain today. What's terrifying is the evidence that if you fall through the cracks there could well be no way out. If anyone thinks the 'Poor Law' and the spectre of the workhouse are things of the past, read this book. Nothing changes for those at the bottom of society, our most vulnerable and traumatised citizens who are so often demonised and vilified simply for being caught in a political and social system which conspires to keep them poor and insecure. A brilliant, heart breaking read.

Cash Carraway has a voice that deserved to be heard. Raw and angry; I want all my books to be bursting with this energy! To a 'middle class' woman who has grown up in a stable family home with two parents and everything I could have ever needed, Carraway's book is a stark reminder that not everyone has this experience, although they are of course entitled to it. Following her journey reminded me of a thriller movie, where things get so bad for the heroine they can't possibly get any worse, but then they do. Please read this book to remind yourself of the gaping class divides in the UK and the money that we need to pour back into public and social services, so that everyone has a fighting chance at leading a comfortable life.

Thanks to Netgalley for this book. This is one of the best books I've read in a long time. It gives an unflinching honest and raw look at poverty. The dark humour in this book is brilliant & I found it really good. It made me hate the policies of the Tory party as it has affected so many people. I'd recommend this as a must read for everyone as what she has to say is vitally important.

This is a vital, urgent read about life on the poverty line in austerity Britain, and the stripping away of our safety nets. On a personal level, certain aspects hit very close to home. Carraway does also, however, manage to push a lot of buttons: chances are, you’ll disagree, you may disapprove, you might not believe every last word, and you’ll certainly be challenged. However, this is her story, and it contains so many truths, so many things I‘d never considered. It also flags up how few voices we actually hear directly from the poverty line and how desperately we need to hear more.

TWs.

Thanks to #NetGalley and Ebury Press for the advance copy for review. The paperback was published in March 2020..

Skint Estate is a difficult read. It is brilliantly written, with a humour that somehow survived the brutality of Cash’s life alongside the anger and pain that inevitably rampage through a memoir of poverty and degradation, but it is also shocking, offensive and humiliating. It is risky to write with such honesty and openness about a life that is certain to be judged, but also incredibly powerful.

Ultimately though, what is it? Cash muses towards the end whether it is simply more poverty porn, something for the wider public to get off on. As a reader I hope not, but at the same time how do you respond to something so disturbing when your own experience is so wildly different, so comfortable and privileged in comparison? There are so many things that make the blood boil in this story, but the system that creates them feels so difficult to penetrate, it doesn’t want solutions.

I recommend this book to anyone who has no experience of what it is like to live on the bottom rung of the ladder in Britain, but it can’t be enough to read a book. That is just tourism. There has to be a follow up action, otherwise reading the book is simply adding to the abuse that Cash has been suffering pretty since day one.

I’ll be honest, in the immediate aftermath of finishing the book, I’m not sure what that action is. On so many levels, I’ve had enough of people and it can be hard to be hopeful, but for as long as we’re here we have to try. Experiment with what we have available to try to make things better. Otherwise we’ve given up.

Really honest, stark and often eye opening account that’s astonishingly self aware and veers between complete despair and poverty and faking it to make it as an aspirational ‘pretend wife’ with a lifestyle Instagram account and Boden wardrobe to match. Really opens your eyes as to how many lives are lived on the knife edge of disaster constantly. Hard to not say this is an uncomfortable read in parts but writing is excellent and her story always compelling.