The I Index

I Don’t Want to Die Poor: Essays

Maybe someday

28

/100

I Index Overall Rating

Readers

19/100

Critics

37/100

Scholars

N/A

Author:

Michael Arceneaux

Publisher:

Atria Books

Date:

April 7, 2020

The author of I Can’t Date Jesusilluminates the 'soul-crushing' financial hardships associated with the pursuit of higher education.

What The Reviewers Say

Gabino Iglesias,
NPR
Making Michael Arceneaux's I Don't Want to Die Poor required reading in high schools across the country would help a lot of young people think twice about the promise that going to college at any cost is the only path to upward social mobility.
Courtney Eathorne,
Booklist
Journalist and cultural critic Arceneaux...offers another unflinchingly smart and wickedly funny collection of essays.
Clayton Delery,
New York Journal of Books
...at its best when Arceneaux discusses the day-to-day travails of struggling with the debt burden ...I Don’t Want to Die Poor is not without its flaws. It has its clumsy patches, and the book is full of slang and pop culture references which make it very much of the moment, but which may not age well. Arceneaux also points out that he knows the book will attract criticism from those who think he should have made other, less expensive choices in the past. That brand of criticism is precisely the point: I Don’t Want to Die Poor is an excellent critique of the way that our society encourages people to try for more, and then punishes them for doing so..
Vanessa Willoughby,
BookPage
...a candid study of the hydra-like power of student loan debt and, as a result, the rising cost of freedom.