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Skint Estate
- A Memoir of Poverty, Motherhood and Survival
- Narrated by: Cash Carraway
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
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Skint Estate
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Summary
Brought to you by Penguin.
"Everyone has their price. It's just not always monetary. Mine is though. 20 quid."
Single mum. 'Stain on society'. Caught in a poverty trap.
It's a luxury to afford morals and if you're Cash Carraway, you do what you can to survive.
From the creator of HBO and BBC's Rain Dogs, Skint Estate is the hard-hitting, blunt, dignified and brutally revealing debut memoir about impoverishment, loneliness and violence in austerity Britain - set against a grim landscape of sink estates, police cells, refuges and peepshows - skilfully woven into a manifesto for change.
Alone, pregnant and living in a women's refuge, Cash Carraway couldn't vote in the 2010 general election that ushered austerity into Britain. Her voice had been silenced. Years later, she watched Grenfell burn from a women's refuge around the corner. What had changed? The vulnerable were still at the bottom of the heap, unheard. Without a stable home, without a steady income, without family support - how do you survive?
In Skint Estate, Cash has found her voice - loud, raw and cutting. This is a book born straight from life lived in Britain below the poverty line - a brutal landscape savaged by universal credit, zero-hours contracts, rising rents and public service funding cuts. Told with a dark lick of humour and two-fingers up to the establishment, Cash takes us on her isolated journey from council house childhood to single motherhood, working multiple jobs yet relying on food banks and temporary accommodation, all while skewering stereotypes of what it means to be working class.
Despite being beaten down from all angles, Cash clings to the important things - love for her daughter, community and friendships - and has woven together a highly charged, hilarious and guttural cry for change.
Critic reviews
"Cash is the definition of edgy, a truly distinctive voice." (Lionel Shriver, best-selling author of We Need to Talk about Kevin)
What listeners say about Skint Estate
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- Miss Joanna Hartley
- 16-09-21
Wow what a listen!
I just want to give Cash a massive hug! A very brave, honest and harsh account as a single mum. I connected with honesty. Can’t wait for book 2! X
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Michael Kosmides
- 08-09-19
Compulsory reading/listening
The bookn hould be compulsory reading for all MPs, economists and journalists -realiry check would hopefully have some effect.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- EJ
- 29-12-19
Absolutely loved it
Wasn't able to put this book down and read it twice over the Christmas period. The gritty truth of the working class and the struggle of surviving on the benefits system well illustrated, painfully so.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Anonymous User
- 13-08-21
Excellent
highly recommended
it is sad it is funny it is honest very personal book . she really did write everything down and that's what makes the book so good I do hope to hear more from this author
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Vanessa Oliver
- 04-12-22
A Huge and Truthful Voice For Single Mothers
Emotional. Funny. Sad. Shocking. Brilliant. True. Written from the heart. More people should read this.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Claire Alison Cartledge
- 07-02-23
Important, brilliant, current: you must read!
This book is gritty, unflinchingly honest, hard-to-hear, utterly heartbreaking and so very funny.
I am delighted that someone has so brutally, and movingly, told the truth; however hard it may be to listen to.
Cash is clearly a devoted mum, a necessary voice and now one of my new favourite authors.
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- amotherandstudent
- 19-07-19
Cash is astonishing.
Brave doesn't come close. I don't review normally but this is important and beautifully read
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7 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Louise
- 24-07-19
Uncomfortably uncompromisingly real
I brought my children up as a single parent, in the ‘90s - has to rely on benefits, shocking to hear that what was a struggle back then has become even more challenging today. Respect and admiration to Cash and every woman filling both the roles of both parents
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2 people found this helpful
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- The killicks
- 15-03-20
Honest account, graphic but reality for so many
This is a brutal account of a a woman’s survival yet determination to not become a statistic and challenge the system yet feeling totally frustrated a defeated.
I hope it makes readers think a little less judgemental towards the battles of single mums in austerity britain
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- Danielle Bolton
- 03-09-21
Harsh, heartbreaking, shocking and necessary
everyone needs to read this book.
what an amazing woman!
This is the taste of reality everyone should have. a real eye opener.
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