Reviews tagging 'Terminal illness'

A Promised Land by Barack Obama

6 reviews

housedesignerking's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted reflective medium-paced

4.0

This is a book that I never pictured myself reading. In 2008, I honestly pictured myself reading a John McCain presidential memoir sometime after his 4 or 8 years in office, eventually reading Sarah Palin's vice-presidential memoir. Obviously, that's not what happened. Senator Obama and Senator Biden went on to become President and Vice-President, respectively. This historic moment in history did not happen with a vote from me. I don't miss that time period when it comes to the political and social atmospheres. If you didn't vote for Obama, you were somehow a racist; if you didn't vote for McCain, you were somehow unamerican; if you liked Biden, you were somehow a supporter of reckless decisions made in anger; and if you liked Palin, you were as dumb as people claimed she was. I also don't miss the political and social atmospheres that followed that election till roughly 2015. People were either fueled by the Tea Party (which was basically a red herring) or unintelligibly stuck in the idea that if you weren't with the dems, you were a racist, and nothing you said would ever matter. I have lived to regret my decision to support McCain and Palin after I saw his very public meltdown about 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' and after seeing her role in the Tea Party and eventually her flouting of Fauci's pandemic recommendations (not to mention, her refusal to support same gender marriage). So, when my fiancé suggested we buy this book and read it, I readily agreed.

Let no one say that Barack Obama is unintelligent. This book was clearly written by a well-educated man, and my love affair with his way with words was obvious to my fiancé as we read this together. This president's way with words is not only engaging but also riveting and funny at times. To the dismay of my younger self, I really didn't find many disagreements between this president and myself. The first thing I could really say that I disagreed with him on (as far as the time covered in this book) was on pg 234: one of the first things he did as president was lift President W. Bush's moratorium on federally funded embryonic stem cell research. His words on growing up black were educational and eye-opening. I don't personally agree with some of his viewpoints regarding what is and isn't racially motivated, but being of two 'minorities' myself, I can definitely see how those perceptions can come to be. Aside from those, I could see why he made certain decisions, or my objection was about something so small that it isn't even worth mentioning. With this book, he went from his childhood to political life to his 2008 campaign and election and comes to a close on the death of Osama bin Laden. That final chapter was both harrowing and surreal and probably is for anyone who is old enough to remember September 11th, 2001. 

It's 2022 as I type this, and though my younger self would probably be shocked and would protest, I will say that he was a good president. I still maintain that my lack of support for his candidacy had nothing to do with race: it was simply about who I thought was the lesser of two evils, but I will say that today, I somewhat wish I had supported him... At least the first time. I still maintain that Romney would be a great president, and I'm still a moderate republican. I'm not sure how much more praise a formerly unsupportive voter could give after what I've written, so I will end by saying that I give this book 4 stars. It's one heck of a book!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Police brutality, Sexism, Slavery, Terminal illness, Abortion, Chronic illness, Death, Medical content, Violence, War, Gaslighting, Gun violence, Islamophobia, Mass/school shootings, Pregnancy, Racial slurs, Racism, Cursing, Death of parent, Deportation, Hate crime, and Bullying

zara89's review against another edition

challenging informative inspiring mysterious slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Cancer, War, Gun violence, Chronic illness, Violence, Racism, Grief, Cultural appropriation, and Terminal illness

Minor: Antisemitism and Genocide

jkiranjot's review

hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime, Islamophobia, Racism, and War

Moderate: Cancer, Death of parent, and Terminal illness

Minor: Sexism

mfieldshalva's review against another edition

adventurous challenging hopeful informative inspiring reflective relaxing tense medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Terminal illness, and Death of parent

sionnac's review against another edition

dark emotional informative inspiring sad tense slow-paced

4.5

I read Michelle Obama's book too and interesting to hear them talk about same period. He's a good writer and I will look forward to the next one. The crises and military operations were hard to read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Cancer, Islamophobia, Racism, Terminal illness, and Violence

Minor: Child death and Mass/school shootings

alylentz's review against another edition

challenging informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

4.0

 More readable and engrossing than I expected from a political memoir that's so hefty. Started to feel a little formulaic after a while, but I definitely learned a lot and feel like I got a lot out of reading this. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism

Moderate: Cancer, Genocide, Grief, Gun violence, Islamophobia, and Police brutality

Minor: Death, Mass/school shootings, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Slavery, Terminal illness, Torture, and Violence