This Is All I Got Audiobook By Lauren Sandler cover art

This Is All I Got

A New Mother's Search for Home

 Preview

Audible Standard 30-day free trial

Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection of titles.
Yours as long as you’re a member.
Get unlimited access to bingeable podcasts.
Standard auto renews for $8.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

This Is All I Got

By: Lauren Sandler
Narrated by: Lauren Sandler
Try Standard free

$8.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $18.00

Buy for $18.00

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • From an award-winning journalist, a poignant and gripping immersion in the life of a young, homeless single mother amid her quest to find stability and shelter in the richest city in America

LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/JEAN STEIN BOOK AWARD • “Riveting . . . a remarkable feat of reporting.”—The New York Times

Camila is twenty-two years old and a new mother. She has no family to rely on, no partner, and no home. Despite her intelligence and determination, the odds are firmly stacked against her. In this extraordinary work of literary reportage, Lauren Sandler chronicles a year in Camila’s life—from the birth of her son to his first birthday—as she navigates the labyrinth of poverty and homelessness in New York City. In her attempts to secure a safe place to raise her son and find a measure of freedom in her life, Camila copes with dashed dreams, failed relationships, the desolation of abandonment, and miles of red tape with grit, humor, and uncanny resilience.

Every day, more than forty-five million Americans attempt to survive below the poverty line. Every night, nearly sixty thousand people sleep in New York City-run shelters, 40 percent of them children. In This Is All I Got, Sandler brings this deeply personal issue to life, vividly depicting one woman's hope and despair and her steadfast determination to change her life despite the myriad setbacks she encounters.

This Is All I Got is a rare feat of reporting and a dramatic story of survival. Sandler’s candid and revealing account also exposes the murky boundaries between a journalist and her subject when it becomes impossible to remain a dispassionate observer. She has written a powerful and unforgettable indictment of a system that is often indifferent to the needs of those it serves, and that sometimes seems designed to fail.

Praise for This Is All I Got

“A rich, sociologically valuable work that’s more gripping, and more devastating, than fiction.”—Booklist

“Vivid, heartbreaking. . . . Readers will be moved by this harrowing and impassioned call for change.”—Publishers Weekly

“A closely observed chronicle . . . Sandler displays her journalistic talent by unerringly presenting this dire situation. . . . An impressive blend of dispassionate reporting, pungent condemnation of public welfare, and gritty humanity.”
—Kirkus Reviews Poverty & Homelessness Social Sciences Social Policy Sociology Homelessness Social Politics & Government Public Policy
All stars
Most relevant
This story is one of the millions of stories that everyday people need to hear. I hope the readers really understand the heartbreak of navigating the welfare system while dealing with everyday pressure and heartache. This is why people protest the current welfare system because reality is worse than fiction.

Great

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Going through a year with this author was very interesting and very frustrating. Most of us know little about the system, especially in NYC or what single moms who are trying to better themselves go through.

Intriguing story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
heartbreaking and eye opening! Got to fix the system and stop this tragic waste of human potential

vote!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This book is so gripping, minutely documented, and a great example of how a personal story can illuminate a problem better than any statistic, no matter how shocking. Lauren Sandler tells the main character's story with integrity, compassion, love, and truth. Thank you for your work, Lauren, to tell Camilla's story and show just how broken our social systems are and why they must change.

Illuminating a big problem with personal story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Lauren Sandler is a remarkable writer and her courage in confronting the harsh reality of poverty-even harsher through the lens of of a single mother-is a great service to anyone thinking deeply about issues of poverty, child care, education, housing justice, family support, and community building. I hope everyone reading/listening to this book comes out of it asking some version of the question: What is mine to do?

look at, to look after

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews