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4.6 AVERAGE
4.6 AVERAGE
challenging
funny
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.75/5 rounded up - Thank you to NetGalley for this eARC in exchange for an honest review. I was intrigued by this book frankly because of the author's twitter account, in which he is always coming in with smart, thoughtful, biting, and hilarious takes on social justice and our political system. I was hoping this book would have all of that clear-cutting logic combined with wit and humor and boy did it deliver. The introduction is one of the best introductions that I've ever read, because it gives us a succinct portrait of who the author is, the exact perspective he is coming from when writing this, and who his audience is:
"If you are new here, hello. My name is Elie Mystal. I'm no longer a lawyer, but I play one on TV. I'm also a columnist and author. I talk and write because I'm not good at marching and fighting. I approach law from the perspective of activism and advocacy, which is an intellectually acceptable way to say I'm biased as fuck."..."Obviously, I think my biases are righteous and other people's biases are misguided, but its important to understand when reading me that I'm not trying to convince other people. You can read many books that try to appeal and persuade people on 'both sides' of an issue, but that is not my mission."
So if you read the introduction and its not for you, I would not read further. In fact if you read the table of contents and feel yourself getting defensive, this book is not for you. Chapter titles include but are not limited to "Why isn't everyone registered to vote?...Why do we incarcerate so many people?...Why do we give White guys a license to kill Black people?...How did they fit the federal budget inside people's wombs?...Why can't we say gay?". However, if these chapters address issues that you think about a lot, that cause you a great deal of pain, that you spend much of your time worrying about and feel helpless to change, then I think you will enjoy this book immensely. Because each chapter outlines a single law - what it actually says, how it came to be, the historical context and motivations for its creation, the consequences resulting from it, and how the singular action of repealing it would cause a great deal of structural change. In a system that feels so impossibly complicated and overbearing, it is refreshing and motivating to understand how pushing for a single action on a single issue in the form of a repeal can cause the change we are hoping for. Not to say that repealing laws is easy, the author explains exactly why and how it is so difficult in each case, but it is a clear, possible path, that cuts through the chaos and helplessness (at least in my mind).
While fully explaining his bias, the author sets up the no-nonsense tone of the book by also not leaving anyone safe. He is on HIS side, which doesn't mean one political party is always good. Everyone can be at fault. There is no objective ultimate truth or goodness, only the rules that imperfect people have set up. Again this is set up immediately in the introduction:
"The law is not a set of objective rules. It's an amalgam of our subjective choices....Our choices have ben shitty. That's because, for the most part, 'we' do not get to participate in the choosing of our laws. Not all of us, not in this country. America is a place where we specifically prohibited Black people and women from participating in the decisions about which laws we'd have for nearly two hundred years."
I also cannot emphasize enough how much I learned from this book about just basic civics and legal terms. Its a little embarrassing how much I didn't know, and how these definitions and details are absolutely crucial to how these laws are set up and carried out. For example, he discusses in the second chapter that most of U.S. Immigration law falls under civil law, that deportation is a civil penalty, and because it is under civil law, violations leading to deportation do not receive the same legal protections we think of being assumed in criminal law such as due process and access to a lawyer. He then goes on to explain that some immigration offenses ARE criminal violations, illegal entry and illegal reentry, and that those are very different things. In chapter 4 he uses airline regulation to discuss the concept of neoliberalism and why it appealed to so many democratic leaning folks at the time but often ended up serving a conservative agenda. Another example is in chapter 6 where he discusses the felony murder law and how the way that it is worded and applied allows for a felony murder charge when there is no murderous intent (instead of manslaughter which is the usual charge when someone dies but there was no intent). This is maybe revealing more about my ignorance than telling you about the book, but hopefully its giving you some sense of the kind of information discussed.
The epilogue again is so well-crafted and mirrors the introduction and the main thesis of the book: "Every law in this book can be repealed by an act of Congress or an act of state legislatures. Every bad law can be replaced by a good one. Nothing is written in stone. Our world is not inevitable."
And then he just hits with an absolute stunner out of nowhere "The United States has the least representative democracy among the wealthy nations of the world. Thats not a vibe, its a fact. Each member of the U.S. House of Representatives (our most local member of the national government) represents on average 760,000 people. The next least representative government after us is Japan, where each proportionally representative member of the Japanese Shugiin (Japan's equivalent of our lower house) is responsible for an average of 270,000 people." And then goes on to explain much more about that.
So yes I found it super eye-opening, engaging, and funny. If you are more versed in legalese this may be basic but I think the tone and quips will still make it entertaining. The only negative thing I have to say is that it could have been a bit longer and more fleshed out. It went really fast through some of the concepts in certain chapters and I'm having a hard time remembering them because I don't think I fully understood in the first place. That's not really the book's fault of course. Anyway, I will be definitely going back to read the author's first book and look forward to any future works!
"If you are new here, hello. My name is Elie Mystal. I'm no longer a lawyer, but I play one on TV. I'm also a columnist and author. I talk and write because I'm not good at marching and fighting. I approach law from the perspective of activism and advocacy, which is an intellectually acceptable way to say I'm biased as fuck."..."Obviously, I think my biases are righteous and other people's biases are misguided, but its important to understand when reading me that I'm not trying to convince other people. You can read many books that try to appeal and persuade people on 'both sides' of an issue, but that is not my mission."
So if you read the introduction and its not for you, I would not read further. In fact if you read the table of contents and feel yourself getting defensive, this book is not for you. Chapter titles include but are not limited to "Why isn't everyone registered to vote?...Why do we incarcerate so many people?...Why do we give White guys a license to kill Black people?...How did they fit the federal budget inside people's wombs?...Why can't we say gay?". However, if these chapters address issues that you think about a lot, that cause you a great deal of pain, that you spend much of your time worrying about and feel helpless to change, then I think you will enjoy this book immensely. Because each chapter outlines a single law - what it actually says, how it came to be, the historical context and motivations for its creation, the consequences resulting from it, and how the singular action of repealing it would cause a great deal of structural change. In a system that feels so impossibly complicated and overbearing, it is refreshing and motivating to understand how pushing for a single action on a single issue in the form of a repeal can cause the change we are hoping for. Not to say that repealing laws is easy, the author explains exactly why and how it is so difficult in each case, but it is a clear, possible path, that cuts through the chaos and helplessness (at least in my mind).
While fully explaining his bias, the author sets up the no-nonsense tone of the book by also not leaving anyone safe. He is on HIS side, which doesn't mean one political party is always good. Everyone can be at fault. There is no objective ultimate truth or goodness, only the rules that imperfect people have set up. Again this is set up immediately in the introduction:
"The law is not a set of objective rules. It's an amalgam of our subjective choices....Our choices have ben shitty. That's because, for the most part, 'we' do not get to participate in the choosing of our laws. Not all of us, not in this country. America is a place where we specifically prohibited Black people and women from participating in the decisions about which laws we'd have for nearly two hundred years."
I also cannot emphasize enough how much I learned from this book about just basic civics and legal terms. Its a little embarrassing how much I didn't know, and how these definitions and details are absolutely crucial to how these laws are set up and carried out. For example, he discusses in the second chapter that most of U.S. Immigration law falls under civil law, that deportation is a civil penalty, and because it is under civil law, violations leading to deportation do not receive the same legal protections we think of being assumed in criminal law such as due process and access to a lawyer. He then goes on to explain that some immigration offenses ARE criminal violations, illegal entry and illegal reentry, and that those are very different things. In chapter 4 he uses airline regulation to discuss the concept of neoliberalism and why it appealed to so many democratic leaning folks at the time but often ended up serving a conservative agenda. Another example is in chapter 6 where he discusses the felony murder law and how the way that it is worded and applied allows for a felony murder charge when there is no murderous intent (instead of manslaughter which is the usual charge when someone dies but there was no intent). This is maybe revealing more about my ignorance than telling you about the book, but hopefully its giving you some sense of the kind of information discussed.
The epilogue again is so well-crafted and mirrors the introduction and the main thesis of the book: "Every law in this book can be repealed by an act of Congress or an act of state legislatures. Every bad law can be replaced by a good one. Nothing is written in stone. Our world is not inevitable."
And then he just hits with an absolute stunner out of nowhere "The United States has the least representative democracy among the wealthy nations of the world. Thats not a vibe, its a fact. Each member of the U.S. House of Representatives (our most local member of the national government) represents on average 760,000 people. The next least representative government after us is Japan, where each proportionally representative member of the Japanese Shugiin (Japan's equivalent of our lower house) is responsible for an average of 270,000 people." And then goes on to explain much more about that.
So yes I found it super eye-opening, engaging, and funny. If you are more versed in legalese this may be basic but I think the tone and quips will still make it entertaining. The only negative thing I have to say is that it could have been a bit longer and more fleshed out. It went really fast through some of the concepts in certain chapters and I'm having a hard time remembering them because I don't think I fully understood in the first place. That's not really the book's fault of course. Anyway, I will be definitely going back to read the author's first book and look forward to any future works!
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Thank you NetGalley for a copy of this ARC in exchange for my review.
An informative book, definitely important to read in 2025. I really appreciate the acknowledgement that readers may have supported the laws written about and that it is alright, what really matters is being open to learn. I don’t love books with clear bias, but I do respect that the author is very upfront about said bias.
My summary: you know shit is bad, but somehow it’s always somehow worse than you expected.
An informative book, definitely important to read in 2025. I really appreciate the acknowledgement that readers may have supported the laws written about and that it is alright, what really matters is being open to learn. I don’t love books with clear bias, but I do respect that the author is very upfront about said bias.
My summary: you know shit is bad, but somehow it’s always somehow worse than you expected.
funny
informative
reflective
fast-paced
Bad Law is a sharp, insightful, and, at moments, unapologetically candid examination of the U.S. legal system. It exposes its many flaws and biases while offering a critique of the ways it serves the interests of the powerful rather than the general public.
The book tackles issues such as racial injustice, the power dynamics at play in legal decision-making, and the often-unseen ways in which the system perpetuates inequality. The author's style is direct, engaging, and often humorous, making a topic that could be dense and inaccessible to many feel both understandable and urgent.
The central idea is that much of American law, particularly in the realms of constitutional interpretation and court rulings, is fundamentally “bad” in the sense that it consistently reinforces existing power structures. The book challenges the myth of “neutral” law, arguing instead that the law often upholds oppressive systems, from policing practices to corporate power. The legal system is not an impartial arbiter but a mechanism that sustains and legitimizes injustice.
Mystal’s ability to explain complex legal concepts and cases in a manner that is accessible to the general reader is a key strength. He uses real-world examples, historical context, and clear analysis to break down how the law functions in practice and how it can be used (and misused) by those in positions of power.
At its core, Bad Law is not just a critique but a call to action. He urges readers to reconsider the law’s supposed sanctity and to advocate for reform that genuinely upholds justice, equity, and fairness. His writing urges readers to confront uncomfortable truths about the American legal system and to demand a system that works for everyone—not just the privileged few.
Overall, the book is compelling and timely as critique of the American legal system that is likely to resonate with those interested in social justice, civil rights, and legal reform.
The book tackles issues such as racial injustice, the power dynamics at play in legal decision-making, and the often-unseen ways in which the system perpetuates inequality. The author's style is direct, engaging, and often humorous, making a topic that could be dense and inaccessible to many feel both understandable and urgent.
The central idea is that much of American law, particularly in the realms of constitutional interpretation and court rulings, is fundamentally “bad” in the sense that it consistently reinforces existing power structures. The book challenges the myth of “neutral” law, arguing instead that the law often upholds oppressive systems, from policing practices to corporate power. The legal system is not an impartial arbiter but a mechanism that sustains and legitimizes injustice.
Mystal’s ability to explain complex legal concepts and cases in a manner that is accessible to the general reader is a key strength. He uses real-world examples, historical context, and clear analysis to break down how the law functions in practice and how it can be used (and misused) by those in positions of power.
At its core, Bad Law is not just a critique but a call to action. He urges readers to reconsider the law’s supposed sanctity and to advocate for reform that genuinely upholds justice, equity, and fairness. His writing urges readers to confront uncomfortable truths about the American legal system and to demand a system that works for everyone—not just the privileged few.
Overall, the book is compelling and timely as critique of the American legal system that is likely to resonate with those interested in social justice, civil rights, and legal reform.
challenging
informative
fast-paced
informative
reflective
fast-paced
I was given this as an ARC in order for my feedback from NetGalley. The feedback is my own.
I really enjoyed this book. As an AP Government teacher with an undergraduate degree in Political Science it was right up my alley. It read very quickly with just enough political information to not bore the average reader but enough to allow me to laugh out loud at certain points. I would love to recommend this book to all readers but I fear this book won’t make it into the hands of the people that need it the most. The author does not hold back on his opinions, which I appreciate. He attacks both sides of the aisle in order to make his points about bad laws.
This book will sit with me for a while and I truly hope those in power will take note and begin the process for change. Our country will never advance if we do not allow for change. Our constitution was not meant to be an unchanging document, for it to only change 17 times since its ratification is unheard of for many democratic governments around the globe.
This was the first book I read from this author but I am immediately going to purchase his other book. The honesty that he provides in his work is much needed and I would highly recommend reading.
I really enjoyed this book. As an AP Government teacher with an undergraduate degree in Political Science it was right up my alley. It read very quickly with just enough political information to not bore the average reader but enough to allow me to laugh out loud at certain points. I would love to recommend this book to all readers but I fear this book won’t make it into the hands of the people that need it the most. The author does not hold back on his opinions, which I appreciate. He attacks both sides of the aisle in order to make his points about bad laws.
This book will sit with me for a while and I truly hope those in power will take note and begin the process for change. Our country will never advance if we do not allow for change. Our constitution was not meant to be an unchanging document, for it to only change 17 times since its ratification is unheard of for many democratic governments around the globe.
This was the first book I read from this author but I am immediately going to purchase his other book. The honesty that he provides in his work is much needed and I would highly recommend reading.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing