"By the time you’ve finished the book, plaguing questions about how ‘America deals with human suffering’ unsettles you to the point you’re almost forced in to action."
"An impressive ethnographic study . . . A valuable addition.
"In the hands of Sered and Norton-Hawk, the politics of personal story insist that the reader consider the woman storyteller as real and whole, a person who must be heard. The authors give her space and allow her a history so that her story is round and complicated—not salaciously sensationalized. Can't Catch a Break is an activist demand for the full personhood of the Boston women and their human rights."
" This book makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the women who cycle through homeless shelters and jails. . . these authors open the way for better strategies that do not blame the victim."
"A refreshingly authentic book that does not fall into the academic trap of constructing this community of women as mad, bad, victims or villains. The participants themselves—as well as the complex array of institutional actors, practices and discourses (and the researchers!)—are portrayed in their multifaceted complexity, from which a searing critique of the “American Dream” and cultural practices of individual responsibility and choice is levied."
"Can’t Catch a Break is an engaging read and serves as a good primer for those interested in how policies and institutions maintain gender inequality."
"An important book for both scholars and students . . . it provides informative statistics along with eyeopening examples of what life is really like for those struggling within and against powerful government and social institutions."
"In Can’t Catch a Break Sered and Norton-Hawk offer the reader a vital glimpse into the chaotic, desperate, and depressing lives of the women that have been criminalized by our ill advised war on drugs. The number of women in prison, a third of whom are incarcerated for drug offenses, has increased eightfold since the eighties. Only rarely do those outside of the various systems that police the poor, get to see beyond the numbers appreciate the blending of health problems, homelessness, poverty and drug addiction that afflicts the lives women we spend billions to jail and imprison. The vivid portraits the authors paint are compelling, making us all ask, as the authors do, “have prisons become the way that America deals with suffering? A must read."
—Meda Chesney-Lind, Ph.D.,Professor and Chair of Women’s Studies, University of Hawaii at Manoa
