Skint Estate is a searing account of the author's battles against the Tory government's war on the underclass and single mothers in particular.It is brutal in it's honesty and also funny as we get to read just what life is like living on the edge,Cash Carraway deserves to have come out of this period of her life with some credit as you learn just what she endured before and after giving birth to her daughter Biddy,and you learn more about what in my opinion is one of the biggest scandals of the last 2 decades of social cleansing which is a national disgrace.It is a story told with brutal honesty and fully deserves to be published so that this shameful Tory government can see just what their policies are doing to the underclass of this country,they should all be made to read this book and then hang their heads in shame,but i won't hold my breath on that happening.A brilliant 5 star read.

WOW!!! This book absolutely needed to be written. The reality of poverty needs to be shouted about. I’ve been the single mum on a council estate. I was lucky. It was hard but years before the benefit caps came into play. I see friends in similar situations now and I have so much admiration that they can provide for their kids despite everything against them. I have read so much of this book out loud so others can hear the harsh reality. Cash Carraway, you are an amazing mum and I am so bloody proud of you for all of this.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC in return for an honest and unbiased opinion. And a massive thank you to the author for telling what everyone needs to know.

4 Stars from me

Being rejected by a parent - the very person whose sole job it is to protect you - leaves it's mark.

I loved her description of walking around the estate hoping to be discovered as the next White Dee!

Cash tells her story with a unique voice - I loved the USE OF CAPITALS to emphasise a point and the (ALBEIT - UNNECESSARY - PULLING - OUT - OF - PRASES) which all added to the personal identity of the memoir.

This is a hard hitting read, you will need to be ready for the cold hard facts that are relentless in places, for the IN DEPTH descriptions of all parts of her and human anatomy - along with all kinds of secretions...

This could easily have been a pity me, feel sorry for me, woe is me tale, yet it is peppered with intelligence and humour throughout. None of which detracts from the stark awfulness of what she has been through.

This is not a light read or a fun read, but in a lot of ways it should be an essential read - maybe for the Tory government that she so blatantly despises!

Cash is telling her story honestly, loudly and boldly; it’s not a pretty read, but it’s not supposed to be. She’s angry, and there’s no apology for that; she is drawing on her life
story and calling out for a manifesto for change.

She’s not afraid to explore the gap between the Haves and Have Nots in contemporary British society (read that as within a Tory patriarchy) and she is fighting against the hurdles that austerity measures put in her way, time and time again. Cash wants her story to be known so that women like her are heard, listened to and supported (rather than demonised) by the public that they’re a part of.

Determined to carve out a better life for herself and her daughter than she had had growing up, in spite of abusive partners, exploitative landlords and a plethora of others who have kicked her while she was down, Cash tells it how she sees it. This story is packed with emotion, which sometimes means the writing style stumbles, but her way with words is both inspiring and damning; she will make you feel the love she has for her daughter as well as the bitter disappointment she has for those who vote Tory - she uses it like a dirty word.

I’d have liked her to go a little deeper into why she holds the political viewpoints that she does, and be a little less sweeping with some of the statements that she makes (Tories=bad, Kent=racist etc) but I still found this a very thought provoking read, and I hope she gets the chance to share more.

With thanks to Penguin and NetGalley for the ARC.

Wow! Easily one of the most moving books I've read in years and a book that everyone should read.
A lot People in the UK think that people like Cash Carraway are a drain on society, worthless and not worth their time.

WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!!!

Cash left home at 16 and was punted around the care system and a life on benefits.

This memoir gives you an insight into life in modern Britain for an ever growing group of people who live life in the margins and below the breadline.
Brutally honest and with enough humour to lighten the load, this is a fascinating and honest, warts and all, look at a young mother trying to make her way in an increasingly unwelcome London in the 21st Century.

You will laugh, cry, be offended and laugh out loud, sometimes all in one chapter.

Every single adult in the UK should read this book and reappraise your prejudices.

Book of the year.

I found this one if the most harrowing and uplifting books I’ve read in a long time. Well done to Cash for never giving up.

The rawness of this book is both heartbreaking and heartwarming . This is real life and it is a serious insight as to what is happening in our world .

Thanks to Net Galley for my free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Reading and writing about ‘Skint estate’ felt slightly intrusive. As if watching from extremely close someone’s thought process in its most undiluted form and then having to comment on it.

This is the story of Cash Carraway. Born in Lambeth in the early 80s, with an abusive, deprived childhood, she went to university and throughout her 20s sporadically wrote for various publications, while working as a stripper (amongst other zero hour jobs) to make ends meet.

Cash Carraway has been a victim of Tory austerity policies. As a single mother on benefits (while working), she couldn’t afford private rent. With her young daughter, she spent year after year moving from Travelodge, to refuge, to temporary accommodation, to rat-infested tiny flats. The cruelty & facelessness of London’s ultra-gentrification and the UK housing disaster are brutally portrayed here. The necessity to be ‘cleansed’ out of inner London, further and further away into the suburbs and eventually out of London altogether, is described in horrifying detail. “The system is created to cleanse”, Carraway says.

This is the story of Grenfell UK, of forced self-employment, of 1,500£ monthly rent for a one bedroom hole in Camden. The story of Londoner after Londoner having to leave the city they grew up in. The story of payday loans, zero hour jobs, food banks, invisibility. Carraway’s voice is not pretty, not manicured. It is loud, raw, often distasteful, distinctive, but funny as well.

I’m not one for trigger warnings (I disagree with the whole idea), but want to warn potential readers that this is not a straightforward, palatable book. It’s gritty, full of extremes. It needs courage and persistence to read it. It must have also taken courage and persistence for Carraway to be so open and unglossed about her life.

I found this account to be very down to earth and believable. It is upsetting to read about the lives some people live but moving to see them able to come out stronger.

Skint Estate is a brutally honest account of one woman's life and experience as a single mother living in modern Britain.At 29, Cash Carraway finds herself pregnant, homeless and fleeing domestic violence. She is determined to do whatever it takes to earn enough money to find a home and make a life for her and the new life growing inside her. And if this involves working 13 hour shifts in a peep show, so be it. Abused by her mother, abandoned by her father, she longs for a family and some semblance of security. But as the Tories win the General Election, she discovers that no matter how hard you try, the system is designed to stigmatize and keep you living in poverty. Zero hours contracts, being forced to take out payday loans that you have no chance of repaying, exorbitant childcare costs and constant threats of homelessness, keep you trapped in situations that no human being should have to endure. Feeling humiliated at having to rely on food banks, crushing loneliness and a dependence on alcohol equal increasing isolation and depression, with no foreseeable way out. Suicide, at times, seems like the only light at the end of a very dark tunnel. But surviving becomes living when Cash is offered a book deal, and this book is important. It highlights the injustice and extreme conditions that people are forced into. Austerity policies are designed to vilify the most vulnerable in our society, but Cash Carraway is not to be silenced and this book is defiantly angry, and rightly so.

I am SO glad that I have read this book. It is more than a good read, it is a fantastic, wonderful MUST read.

Cash pulls no punches, doesn't sugarcoat her life, doesn't apologise and is painfully honest about her mistakes. This is not poverty porn or misery porn, this is honest writ large and beautifully.

She speaks for herself and all of those in her position who have no voice, who society doesn't want to hear because if we hear them then we have to acknowledge the pain and the difficulties and stop accepting easy tabloid stereotypes of what it is to be a single mum in zero-hours Britain. Cash is far from perfect but then so are most of us and most of us aren't so honest about her failings, but for all her failings she is strong and her love for her daughter means she will do just about anything to give her the life she needs. But, here's the thing, she works harder than most people in comfortable jobs, she works multiple jobs because she has to and still she is always weeks away from homelessness and no matter how hard she works it is unlikely that there is any way out of poverty. That's why we call it the poverty trap. Some get out of it, but they are rarer than hens' teeth.

As I read and once I finished my wish was that this book will be her way out, that it will do well and that she will write more - and she needs to write more because she is a born writer - and that success will give her a life that is more secure. She deserves it, not because she can write but because any woman who works as hard as she does, and there are so many of them, deserve any chance that exists to move off the bottom rung of a greasy ladder and have a decent life.

I have recommended it to all my friends and if they don't do the right thing and buy a copy themselves, then that's birthday and Christmas presents sorted for the rest of the year. This books will change lives and minds and I hope one of those lives is Cash's.

This was fantastic. Darkly funny, and never shies away from essential truths. Everyone should read this book.

A stark and well observed look at the harsh realities of life.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for allowing me to read this in exchange for an honest review.

I am always keen to read a memoir so when this was offered to me by Netgalley in return for an honest review, I jumped at the chance.
Cash's memoir is brutally honest, raw and heartbreaking at times. It is obvious life has not dealt her an easy hand but she is clearly a strong person. I really liked the way some bits, like the way she spoke to the solicitor were written. It gave an urgency to the situation. A great read and I am glad that her and her daughter, who she clearly loves lots, are now living above the poverty line.

Angry is the word that springs to mind. Injustice. Unfairness. Class discrimination. Brutal. Honest. Shocking.
I would not have said this was a darkly humorous book. It is at times harrowing, not always an easy read but then the truth can hurt.
Too easy to assume that someone who falls to the lowest of the low doesn't have a brain, or deserves that lifestyle when in reality they have been abandoned by the system at a very young age and since then have been trying to make a life for themselves and their daughter.
It is gritty, it makes you think about all the things we take for granted....

A darkly funny debut memoir following a young single mother living below the poverty line in austerity Britain.

Carraway's voice is raw and angry as she paints a stark and brutally honest picture of poverty in modern Britain, and her relentless fight to escape the poverty line. Amongst others, she explores her experiences with abusive childhood, abusive relationships, alcohol abuse, food banks, women's refuges, instability as she is forced to move every 6 months as a young single mother and her life working several minimum (or below minimum wage) jobs including in the sex industry just to make her rent. It's at parts horrifying and heart-breaking to read, and should be required reading for all political decision-makers and voters to showcase the real-life implications of their actions.

I did really like this memoir and came away very inspired to continue to fight in what I believe in - equality for all and the preservation of human rights and a minimum standard of living. However... there was an overt political angle to Carraway's writing, which I did feel was not always best articulated. More specifically, while Carraway's anger re-energised me in my support for Labour/leftist politics, I find it unlikely that others with a different political outlook reading this would have been persuaded to change their minds, which is a real shame and, I think, a lost opportunity. Skint Estate really seemed to lean in to the fact that this book will only be read by those already sympathetic. As such, generalisations are rampant - all Tory voters are evil, all Labour voters are good, all of Kent is racist, and, of course, Carraway's allegation that being moved to Kent was part of a social cleansing agenda to rid working classes from London, all repeatedly expressed without fully making any case for it.

Carraway does actually explicitly address this at one point, stating that the way she articulates her politics is not readily accepted because it does not conform to the language espoused by the middle classes and educated persons when discussing these issues, which is definitely a very valid point and I do agree with her that people should be allowed to express their anger at injustice in this sphere. UK politics does need to be more inclusive and progressive, and that does include getting rid of the public school stuffiness ripe in the culture, with a deluge of privately educated politicians at the echelons of power and influence. However, I was disappointed that some of the issues raised were not discussed in a more nuanced fashion as it overall made her message less persuasive.

A bleak and depressing story of trying to exist with the horrors of abuse and poverty. Although the author succeeded in getting her point and her story out there it was full of bitterness and unresolved anger to the end. Her style is aggressive and disjointed and I felt no peace was sought.

This book was very open and frank and details the authors memoir of austerity Britain bringing up a child alone through doing sex work and moving from place to place. the thing I liked the most was cash's frankness in describing things which made the book for me and didn't brush anything under the carpet

Hard hitting story of a single mother trying to survive and dig her way out of poverty.
Cash's life since early years was traumatic but she struggles on to provide a better life for herself and her daughter.
This story will resonate with anyone who has had to survive on benefits in the UK, who has lived in temporary accommodation or who feels invisible to the rest of the world.
Cash doesn't pull her punches throughout the book which can make it a difficult read but it is an important story and you have to admire her guts and determination.
Her love for her daughter pulls the reader through until the end.
Would have been 5 stars but story lost its place a few times.

This book is unflinching, direct and fizzing with energy. A memoir of navigating life in the UK as a single mother under a Tory government. Cash writes about working in. peep show while pregnant, suffering domestic violence, a broken welfare system that fails to support those who need it most, and her experiences in women’s refuges. Throughout, her love for her daughter is fierce and bright, and the situations she is forced to endure are shocking and frustrating. The chronology is quite confusing and I struggled to follow some parts, but the writing is brash and bold and the message is important.