Vance's book, Hillbilly Elegy, came out, there were people saying that he did not portray life in Appalachia appropriately. Appalachian Reckoning is a collection of those who thought differently. However, remember, J.D. Vance wrote about HIS life and HIS experiences. Not everyones is the same. Vance, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis (my dad's father center on the stairs, uncle, and other workers during harvest) The writing and conclusions of this book are probably a 3-star, but emotionally this is a 4-star book for me (thus my vacillating between 3&4-stars). Find books like Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis from the world’s largest community of readers. Goodreads members who liked Hi. Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis Quotes #1 “Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

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J.D. Vance's controversial 2016 bestseller, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, is now available to stream on Netflix. Ron Howard's Hillbilly Elegy film has received praise for Amy Adams and Glenn Close's portrayals of Vance's mother and grandmother — as well as a slew of negative reviews for just about everything else in the film — but readers know that nothing stands in for the book itself. Here's what you need to know about the Hillbilly Elegy book ending before you watch the movie. Major spoilers for Hillbilly Elegy follow.

Lauded as an insider's look at Appalachian life upon its 2016 launch, J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy takes readers on Vance's journey from the southern Ohio suburbs to Yale. But Vance, a venture capitalist and one time aspiring Republican senator, is not the book's most compelling character. Instead, the author's mother and grandmother, Bev and Mamaw Vance, take center stage in his story of abuse and addiction.

The matriarchs of Vance's life are not heroes, however. For much of her life, Mamaw is locked in a physically abusive marriage to Papaw Vance, who drinks too much. Mamaw eventually lights Papaw on fire with gasoline to pay him back for his drinking problem, and although the two separate afterward, they remain close. Bev, on the other hand, bounces between a series of abusive relationships, beats her children, and abuses prescription narcotics.

Vance finds his escape in military service. Following a tour of duty in the Iraq War, he attends Ohio State University, taking on an accelerated course of study in order to graduate early. When he's accepted to Yale Law School, however, Vance experiences a massive culture shock living among his wealthy-born peers. His lifeline at Yale turns out to be his future wife, Usha, who helps him rub elbows with the upper classes without revealing too much about his impoverished background.

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As Hillbilly Elegy comes to a close, Vance turns his attention to reflecting on the problems of 'hillbilly' life — a move that has drawn harsh criticism. Writing for Lexington, Kentucky's Herald Leader, Brandon Kiser points out that 'Vance isn’t a hillbilly at all.' Although he spent short periods of his life in an area of Kentucky which Kiser calls 'Hillbilly Headquarters, USA,' Vance actually grew up in the suburbs of Cincinnati, Ohio, outside the purview of the Appalachian Regional Commission.

The film has drawn just as much controversy as the book did in 2016, but you can check it out for yourself on Netflix now.

“Hillbilly Elegy,” Ron Howard’s film based on J.D. Vance’s memoir, is one of those movies that comes with a built-in audience — a built-in audience of haters, ready to pounce without having seen it.

My advice: Watch the movie first. Then hate it, if you like. But you might not. Maybe not because of what Howard puts in his film (which includes actor’s actor performances from Amy Adams and Glenn Close) but for what he leaves out.

Vance’s book (like the trailer of the film when it was released) has been scorched for the author projecting his own experience growing up in a family with an Appalachian legacy mired in addiction and abuse — he eventually makes it to Ohio State University and Yale Law School — onto an entire culture, offering dubious insight into why poor, uneducated white people supported Donald Trump. (The full name of the book is “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis.”)

Ron Howard solves some of the book's problems by leaving them out

Wps office powerpoint. Howard solved the potential problem of fueling hate-watchers’ fire about the socioeconomic musings on personal responsibility and such the easy way:

He leaves them out.

Instead he focuses on the personal story of J.D., played as a boy by Owen Asztalos, then by Gabriel Basso. J.D. grew up in Ohio, but at the start of the movie he’s visiting family in Kentucky. When some local boys bully him, they get a taste of how close-knit the Vance family can be.

Three women figure prominently in J.D.’s life: his mother, Bev (Adams, mostly decked out in overall shorts and a frizzy wig); Mamaw, his grandmother (Close, in an even frizzier wig, owl glasses and a cigarette constantly dangling from her mouth); and Lindsay (Haley Bennett), his older sister.

They share a genuine love for one another, but there are problems, the worst of which is Bev’s addiction. She’s a nurse, but as addiction overtakes her she begins making the poor decisions you’d expect. These include, but are not limited to, unfortunate choices in men.

J.D. reminisces on this while at law school. His girlfriend and classmate Usha (Freida Pinto) is supportive, but J.D. keeps her at a distance when it comes to his family — literally, when she volunteers to accompany him on an emergency visit.

The social observations in Vance's book are mostly left out

This comes at the absolute most inopportune time. J.D. has just slogged his way through a fancy dinner with lawyers at a high-powered firm where he's hoping to intern. He’s frustrated because he doesn’t know what the extra forks are for (he calls Usha for help) and he feels out of place and put upon. It is impossible to watch this and not think, dude, a nice dinner is not an attempt to humiliate you. Just eat.

But he’s simmering and he speaks his mind to one of the partners and is sure he’s blown his shot. That’s about as much heavy-handed cultural criticism as Howard includes in the film, and it’s not very effective. (Lindsay at one point tells him not to use his family as an excuse to fail, but it’s delivered more as a personal command, not an overarching societal observation.)

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During dinner J.D. gets a call: His mother has overdosed. Can he please come home? Right now?

So he drives home and, wouldn’t you know it, while he’s trying to get his mother’s hospital bills sorted out (she has let the insurance lapse) the firm calls. Could he come for a personal interview? Tomorrow morning?

Meanwhile, through more flashbacks, we learn of the hard road J.D. has been forced to take. Bev is out of control for large chunks of his childhood and teen years. After a particularly ugly incident he moves in with Mamaw, who is a salt-of-the-earth, tough-love sort of person. (Papaw, played by Bo Hopkins, has a lighter touch.)

The story's pretty standard. Amy Adams and Glenn Close's acting is not

So in effect this is a pretty standard overcoming-adversity story, particularly with the more politically oriented social observations removed. What isn’t standard is the acting. Neither Adams nor Close, both such gifted actors, have won an Academy Award. Their performances suggest that Howard might have reminded them of this every time he was about to call, “Action!”

Both are ferocious, in different ways. Adams digs into the troubled and, even to those who love them, often maddening life of an addict and leaves behind any hint of the charm we often see in her characters. Giselle from “Enchanted,” this ain’t.

Close’s performance is one of slower, sustained intensity. If Bev behaves like her frizzy hair is on fire, Mamaw steadily faces down the problems in front of her. And if you are one of those problems, you probably would do well to get out of the way.

“Hillbilly Elegy” ultimately is not the movie a lot of people thought it would be. Whether that’s a good or a bad thing, you’ll have to decide after you’ve seen it.

'Hillbilly Elegy,' 3.5 stars

Great ★★★★★ Good ★★★★

Fair ★★★ Bad ★★ Bomb ★

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Director: Ron Howard.

Cast: Amy Adams, Glenn Close, Gabriel Basso.

Rating: R for language throughout, drug content and some violence.

Note: In some theaters Nov. 13. Streams on Netflix Nov. 24.

Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Twitter: @goodyk.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Why Ron Howard's 'Hillbilly Elegy' isn't the movie you think it will be