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A review by sarahmcg
A Promised Land by Barack Obama
informative
slow-paced
4.25
I always feel weird reviewing/rating memoir! However, here’s some thoughts on this one:
It’s in-depth, informative, and long (I started this around Thanksgiving 😅)! To be fair, non-fiction always takes me longer to read and this audiobook is 28 hours long. I enjoyed listening to it because he reads it. It covers some childhood/growing up, and then focuses on his campaign and election all the way through to when Osama Bin Laden was captured (2011). There’s another volume coming (idk when!)
Obama became president while I was in HS! Admittedly, I had the privilege of not paying too much attention to politics at the time. Now that I’m an ✨ adult ✨ and trying to be more informed, I enjoyed learning more about his presidency in detail - it filled in a lot of knowledge on things I had heard of but didn’t know much about, from the financial crisis to international/global relations to all the other decisions a President has to make - when to get involved in conflict and how to do so, when and how to address issues in the media, the minutiae of making legislative change.
This book truly brings to light something I’m sure we all realize… the President can have a lot of amazing hopes and dreams in their vision of what they would like to do for the USA in ideal circumstances. However, what change they are actually able to make during their presidency is dependent on so many other variables.
There’s of course the pressure from both parties - the opposite party not agreeing with a proposal, while your own party believes you’re not doing enough - and basically having to whittle your original idea down bit-by-bit until it’s digestible enough for a majority to agree on. It’s frustrating to see how long it takes to create real change, but he did have some great triumphs, as well as the distinction of being the first Black POTUS!
It’s in-depth, informative, and long (I started this around Thanksgiving 😅)! To be fair, non-fiction always takes me longer to read and this audiobook is 28 hours long. I enjoyed listening to it because he reads it. It covers some childhood/growing up, and then focuses on his campaign and election all the way through to when Osama Bin Laden was captured (2011). There’s another volume coming (idk when!)
Obama became president while I was in HS! Admittedly, I had the privilege of not paying too much attention to politics at the time. Now that I’m an ✨ adult ✨ and trying to be more informed, I enjoyed learning more about his presidency in detail - it filled in a lot of knowledge on things I had heard of but didn’t know much about, from the financial crisis to international/global relations to all the other decisions a President has to make - when to get involved in conflict and how to do so, when and how to address issues in the media, the minutiae of making legislative change.
This book truly brings to light something I’m sure we all realize… the President can have a lot of amazing hopes and dreams in their vision of what they would like to do for the USA in ideal circumstances. However, what change they are actually able to make during their presidency is dependent on so many other variables.
There’s of course the pressure from both parties - the opposite party not agreeing with a proposal, while your own party believes you’re not doing enough - and basically having to whittle your original idea down bit-by-bit until it’s digestible enough for a majority to agree on. It’s frustrating to see how long it takes to create real change, but he did have some great triumphs, as well as the distinction of being the first Black POTUS!