I read this over christmas and was completely engrossed (to the extent of being borderline antisocial).

I can certainly understand how you might find it disheartening and depressing, but I don't know I could quite see bored. The retelling of the situations was captivating, and the descriptions of how the system fails those most in need was harrowing at times. I've been recommending it to anyone who will listen.

I'm not saying __I__ got bored :)

However, the truth is, plenty of books get started and are never finished. Since the bit at the end was so factually important to the discussion of the issue, I didn't want that to be missed.

Imho, he should have started there.

I'm certainly guilty of getting partway through books and never returning, but I don't know that if I'd jumped into the data first I would have been so engrossed.

(Obviously this is entirely a personal perspective.)

Engrossed? Maybe not. But a lot of myths would have been busted. For me, it's about trying to understand an issue, bumping into some ignorant ahole, and being able to say "read this book...read __this chapter__."

Few enjoy such books. But more need to be more aware of the (data) truths that define the issue.

The data on the number of deaths from domestic violence in cities/states that have a law for penalizing landlords with properties with too many police calls was infuriating.

I would advise the opposite of this. Many of his solutions listed at the end are ineffective, poorly researched and/or totally impractical ("more rent control!", "socialize all housing!"). It's telling that he doesn't seem to have spoken to any economists about any of the things he proposes.

The real value of that book is in the stories and descriptions of the inner workings of how evictions work in the two cities he profiles, which it does an excellent job telling throughout the rest of the book, and because of that I would highly recommend it.

If it helps, Evicted recently won the Pulitzer prize for non-fiction. Great book.