Porter is a remarkable woman, but she undercuts her important accomplishments in the way she tells her story.
Debut memoir from the whiteboard-wielding U.S. representative.
Since her election to the House of Representatives in 2018, Porter has established a reputation as a no-nonsense single mother fighting on behalf of everyday people. As an Iowa native who spent her early childhood on the family farm, Porter comes by her Everywoman persona honestly. Later, she graduated from Phillips Academy, Yale, and Harvard Law School, and she counts Elena Kagan, Elizabeth Warren, and Kamala Harris among her mentors. Had Hillary Clinton won the presidency in 2020, Porter would have been on her transition team. Although the author never planned to run for office, she’s not exactly a political outsider. Maybe it’s the tension between these very different aspects of her story that makes her come across as defensive. Eschewing a chronological narrative, Porter offers a series of essays that don’t fully cohere thematically or stylistically. There are autobiographical vignettes; detailed—possibly too detailed—descriptions of her work as an academic specializing in bankruptcy law; and numerous diatribes. Some chapters are terrific. Her fiery explanation of how difficult it is to serve in Congress unless you’re independently wealthy should make us all angry, and her account of the role domestic violence has played in her life is affecting. Her description of the senior project she completed at Yale—about a dying Iowa city being “revitalized” by big agriculture—serves as a sort of intellectual and political origin story. The author seldom misses an opportunity to take a swipe at someone—her staffers and House colleagues get especially rough treatment—and the chief takeaway from her brief account of the Jan. 6 insurrection is that while she was largely unfazed, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was distraught, hoping that the MAGA hordes wouldn’t recognize her. The only person who emerges from these pages looking good is Sen. Warren, someone for whom Porter has genuine respect and affection.
Porter is a remarkable woman, but she undercuts her important accomplishments in the way she tells her story.Pub Date: April 11, 2023
ISBN: 9780593443989
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2023
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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
PERSPECTIVES
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