A convincing case for criminal justice reform that may alienate some readers.
In this nonfiction book, a reformed sex offender argues for better treatment of felons.
As a young adult, Hardy taught Sunday school, served as a deacon at his church, and was a respected figure in his community. Behind this public facade that “fooled my wife, family,” and friends, the author was a “sex addict,” “manipulator,” and soon-to-be convicted sex offender. After a religious conversion in a suicide watch cell soon after his crimes were revealed, Hardy earned a doctorate, served as a peer recovery coach for the Arizona Department of Corrections Sex Offender Education and Treatment Program, and became the author of an annual devotional calendar circulated among thousands of prisoners across the country. In this book, he blends his personal experiences as an abuser, an inmate, and a rehabilitated ex-felon with a wider commentary on Christianity and the criminal justice system. While sharing the stories of victims and emphasizing the “horrific and heinous” nature of sexual assault, the volume challenges the “myth” that sex offenders “cannot change.” By painting sex offenders as “incurable monsters,” society at all levels, from the media to churches, dehumanizes convicts and makes rehabilitation and reform more difficult. Hardy also urges his fellow Christians to place mass incarceration as a “serious ethical issue” on par with abortion, and apply the religion’s principles of “forgiveness, mercy, and love” to convicted criminals. Backed by solid research and more than 250 endnotes, the book delivers an effective case against the status quo of America’s contemporary criminal justice system. This case is presented in an accessible writing style that combines autobiography, anecdotal stories from both victims and perpetrators, and an ample assortment of charts, graphs, and appendix material. With a target audience of evangelical, traditionalist Christians (noting explicitly that it “is not written for unbelievers or for the ‘casual’ Christian”), the volume may offend many readers with its descriptions of gay sexuality as “sodomy” and a “sexually immoral” sin. And conservative readers will likely be challenged by the book’s discussion of the implications of hardline law-and-order policies.
A convincing case for criminal justice reform that may alienate some readers.Pub Date: March 11, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-63751-167-1
Page Count: 238
Publisher: Cadmus Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 7, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A hopeful civic sermon favoring inspiration over concrete prescriptions.
A New Jersey senator’s moral manifesto.
Booker situates his narrative in the wake of his 2025 record-breaking 25-hour stand on the Senate floor, an act of physical endurance and moral insistence that serves as its animating example. Though not framed as memoir, the episode implicitly positions Booker himself as a model of the virtues he argues are essential to democratic life. Organized around 10 qualities, including agency, vulnerability, truth, perseverance, and grace, the book advances a clear thesis. “In this book, I argue that many Americans who came before us, and many among us today, have consistently proven that virtues are practical: They expand our power, deepen our sense of belonging, and equip us to endure and ultimately prevail.” Booker illustrates this claim through figures such as the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis, whose willingness to endure sacrifice for principle anchors the book’s moral lineage, and Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, whose composure under public scrutiny is presented as an example of dignity as civic strength. These portraits reinforce Booker’s belief that character, sustained over time, can shape public life, even when political outcomes remain uncertain or incomplete. He supplements these examples with personal stories drawn from family, faith, and community, delivered with emotional conviction and a tone that remains affirming and carefully calibrated. Much of the narrative reads like an expansive commencement address, earnest and reassuring, offering moral affirmation at moments when readers might reasonably expect sharper confrontation. That rhetorical choice ultimately defines the book’s limits. Booker acknowledges political conflict and compromise, but rarely examines them in depth, and while urging leaders to take moral risks, he avoids sustained reflection on how some of his own political decisions have tested the virtues he promotes. The result is a principled but self-conscious work that affirms shared values while offering little guidance for navigating power and accountability.
A hopeful civic sermon favoring inspiration over concrete prescriptions.Pub Date: March 24, 2026
ISBN: 9781250436733
Page Count: 272
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: March 24, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2026
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
