Occasionally unfocused, but an informed and original progressive voice.
Acerbic, observant tale of coming of age amid “the unlikely rise (and tragic fall) of a post-2008 wave of social democratic politics.”
Frost, co-host of the Chapo Trap House podcast, delivers a witty, self-knowing, digressive memoir, noting how her ADHD–inflected mindset has “been given free rein to dictate the literary style of this book.” While candid about the ups and downs of her personal life, she maintains an impassioned focus on progressive politics: “Socialism for me is simply a chore that needs to be done.” She affectingly describes her upbringing in an economically faded Indiana, influenced by her working-class, pro-union extended family. “I first threw myself into politics,” she writes, “out of frustration with an economy that sabotaged the talents, desires, and ambitions of so many people I knew and loved.” She realized mainline progressivism’s limitations upon moving to New York, working for the Working Families Party, then the Democratic Socialists of America, and, later, Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaigns. Along the way, she participated in Occupy Wall Street, and she tartly depicts a transition from exciting to pedantic, noting, “every group at Occupy was always unstable, always vulnerable to tyrannical personalities and disruption.” In 2016, the Sanders phenomenon seemed a “realignment campaign” that would “show Americans they could demand more than what the Democrats offered.” The odds against Sanders’ campaigns (and their sabotage by Democratic leaders) left Frost drained and frustrated. “He was an honest man in the public eye,” she writes, “and he was exposing the venality and corruption of the DNC.” The author peppers the narrative with incisive analytical digressions and unsparing critiques of politics, including the outsized influence of careerists and other toxic personalities. Underneath it all, she remains optimistic: “if you ever feel your faith depleted, you can have some of mine.”
Occasionally unfocused, but an informed and original progressive voice.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781250269621
Page Count: 288
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.
An insider’s chronicle of a pivotal presidential campaign.
Several months into the mounting political upheaval of Donald Trump’s second term and following a wave of bestselling political exposés, most notably Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s Original Sin on Joe Biden’s health and late decision to step down, former Vice President Harris offers her own account of the consequential months surrounding Biden’s withdrawal and her swift campaign for the presidency. Structured as brief chapters with countdown headers from 107 days to Election Day, the book recounts the campaign’s daily rigors: vetting a running mate, navigating back-to-back rallies, preparing for the convention and the debate with Trump, and deflecting obstacles in the form of both Trump’s camp and Biden’s faltering team. Harris aims to set the record straight on issues that have remained hotly debated. While acknowledging Biden’s advancing decline, she also highlights his foreign-policy steadiness: “His years of experience in foreign policy clearly showed….He was always focused, always commander in chief in that room.” More blame is placed on his inner circle, especially Jill Biden, whom Harris faults for pushing him beyond his limits—“the people who knew him best, should have realized that any campaign was a bridge too far.” Throughout, she highlights her own qualifications and dismisses suggestions that an open contest might have better served the party: “If they thought I was down with a mini primary or some other half-baked procedure, I was quick to disabuse them.” Facing Trump’s increasingly unhinged behavior, Harris never openly doubts her ability to confront him. Yet she doesn’t fully persuade the reader that she had the capacity to counter his dominance, suggesting instead that her defeat stemmed from a lack of time—a theme underscored by the urgency of the book’s title. If not entirely sanguine about the future, she maintains a clear-eyed view of the damage already done: “Perhaps so much damage that we will have to re-create our government…something leaner, swifter, and much more efficient.”
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781668211656
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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