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A review by notwellread
What Happened by Hillary Rodham Clinton
5.0
First of all, I would address everyone that says she “blames everyone else” and “doesn’t accept responsibility”: she blames her self on the first page. Literally all you have to do is open the book to the first page and you will see that she does accept responsibility and blame herself. Clearly the people giving this book one star on the accusation that she doesn’t take responsibility not only haven’t read the book, but haven’t even read the first page, and if this wasn’t obvious, you shouldn’t be throwing out ratings on books you haven’t read.
Secondly, I’ve also heard a lot of people complain that “nobody cares what Hillary has to say” and that her thoughts and views are no longer relevant. It’s become a bit of a cliché to say “If you don’t like it, don’t read it” whenever a particular book is criticised, and in this case the people complaining (one would expect) clearly haven’t read the book anyway (so from their perspective, it could potentially say anything), but I would further point out that, if anyone really believed this to be the case, they could leave the subject of the book alone and let it fall by the wayside; the amount of public furore around the book’s publication shows that this was never really the case, and the people complaining that “nobody cares” actually care just as much as many of Hillary’s enduring supporters. The press attention, plus the people camping out overnight before her book signings, show that the opposite is actually true – however you feel about the book itself, it’s indisputable that the public do care about its existence.
The reality is that Hillary is a private citizen now, and so she can (within reason) say and do whatever she wants, and the book’s bestselling status demonstrates that a lot of people do care what she has to say. From a historian’s perspective, a direct account written by the hand of one of the man participants in the most divisive election in American history is priceless, and I don’t see this book going away any time soon. If the Russian collusion scandal goes the way most are expecting it to, the election will become even more notorious, and this version of events in turn more significant. I’ve also seen fellow Brits complain that no one ‘over here’ cares about Hillary – again, both the sales figures for this book and the rapid selling out to her UK appearances (I couldn’t get a ticket!) show that we care about Hillary too, and in fact seem to have a much warmer attitude towards her than her rather ungrateful compatriots who have directly benefited from her lifetime of hard work and advocacy.
I don’t want this only to be a rant without any reviewing, so now that those basic points are out of the way, I’ll proceed to covering the book itself.
I recognise that, since I already supported Hillary, I am more likely to sympathise and agree with her point of view, but there is a lot in here for sceptics who don’t really ‘get’ Hillary. She explains a lot of her attitudes and behaviour in a way that fence-sitters may find helpful, especially younger people who don’t remember her early career and time as First Lady. She discusses the campaign’s efforts in the rust belt (where they did campaign, despite popular belief) and where they most likely failed with the white working class, her clashes with Sanders, the first signs of Russian interference and so on. The problem is, of course, that loyal Hillarians are likely to pick up this book, while people who are more indifferent are unlikely to read it, and those who oppose her won’t make an effort to understand (as so many of the one star reviews show).
For my own part, I loved this even more than I thought I would, and it was far less depressing than I thought it would be (though it did make me emotional at times, it reveals Hillary as a very positive spirit). The way she gives such a clear-voiced and wise autopsy of a complicated and increasingly dark series of events is genuinely inspirational. In fact, the book has a good balance of highs and lows: she is hilarious in her brevity when she recounts Trump's wedding, less so in her recollection of the inauguration. Despite all the smears against her, the book is very revealing of her true character: particularly with regards to her private life, her praise of her daughter Chelsea is so sweet, and the clear and honest writing on her marriage (always a subject for debate, it seems, when it's really none of the public's business) is good to see from her directly, though thankfully she doesn't dwell on private matters and trivialities too much. She has a good sense of public versus private as she surveys the various chapter subjects (she shows that the emails from her personal email address were just that - personal), and you can hear it in the way her tone of voice changes throughout the audiobook: you can hear how angry she is at the appropriate moments for it, but also how genuine her feeling is in the heartwarming parts.
For better or for worse, the book doesn’t dwell solely on the campaign – in the middle she talks a lot about the policies closest to her heart and (often overlapping) the most pressing issues currently facing her country, rounded off with a focus on recent events at the beginning and end. Much of the discussion is on climate change, gun control, healthcare, and (a particular priority throughout Hillary’s career) child welfare. Knowing this book would sell, she obviously wanted to direct attention towards these issues rather than being too self-focused (unlike Sanders’ book, titled “Our” Revolution but mostly about himself), and the Clintons tend to write long books, so I’m not surprised that she wanted to be comprehensive.
In my view reading her opinions is especially important given that, despite the immense amount of policy detail on her website, the media chose to focus on ‘emails’ rather than the important but ‘boring’ aspects of choosing the leader of the Free World, and many of these subjects, including climate change, were ignored by all three debates. Regardless of political affiliation, you may think you know the whole story already and don’t need to ‘re-live it’ through an almost 500-page book, but she has a vital and unique perspective on the key issues and how they played out for the worse in the campaign.
All in all, she has a lot of insight into the key issues of our day, and a lot to say about being a woman in politics (and her career in general) from her own first hand experience, and yet, whatever she does, the people who most need this message are the ones least likely to seek it out. I would just point out that she has been deeply misjudged, possibly the most misunderstood figure of our time, and I hope her detractors get over themselves before it’s too late to listen.
Secondly, I’ve also heard a lot of people complain that “nobody cares what Hillary has to say” and that her thoughts and views are no longer relevant. It’s become a bit of a cliché to say “If you don’t like it, don’t read it” whenever a particular book is criticised, and in this case the people complaining (one would expect) clearly haven’t read the book anyway (so from their perspective, it could potentially say anything), but I would further point out that, if anyone really believed this to be the case, they could leave the subject of the book alone and let it fall by the wayside; the amount of public furore around the book’s publication shows that this was never really the case, and the people complaining that “nobody cares” actually care just as much as many of Hillary’s enduring supporters. The press attention, plus the people camping out overnight before her book signings, show that the opposite is actually true – however you feel about the book itself, it’s indisputable that the public do care about its existence.
The reality is that Hillary is a private citizen now, and so she can (within reason) say and do whatever she wants, and the book’s bestselling status demonstrates that a lot of people do care what she has to say. From a historian’s perspective, a direct account written by the hand of one of the man participants in the most divisive election in American history is priceless, and I don’t see this book going away any time soon. If the Russian collusion scandal goes the way most are expecting it to, the election will become even more notorious, and this version of events in turn more significant. I’ve also seen fellow Brits complain that no one ‘over here’ cares about Hillary – again, both the sales figures for this book and the rapid selling out to her UK appearances (I couldn’t get a ticket!) show that we care about Hillary too, and in fact seem to have a much warmer attitude towards her than her rather ungrateful compatriots who have directly benefited from her lifetime of hard work and advocacy.
I don’t want this only to be a rant without any reviewing, so now that those basic points are out of the way, I’ll proceed to covering the book itself.
I recognise that, since I already supported Hillary, I am more likely to sympathise and agree with her point of view, but there is a lot in here for sceptics who don’t really ‘get’ Hillary. She explains a lot of her attitudes and behaviour in a way that fence-sitters may find helpful, especially younger people who don’t remember her early career and time as First Lady. She discusses the campaign’s efforts in the rust belt (where they did campaign, despite popular belief) and where they most likely failed with the white working class, her clashes with Sanders, the first signs of Russian interference and so on. The problem is, of course, that loyal Hillarians are likely to pick up this book, while people who are more indifferent are unlikely to read it, and those who oppose her won’t make an effort to understand (as so many of the one star reviews show).
For my own part, I loved this even more than I thought I would, and it was far less depressing than I thought it would be (though it did make me emotional at times, it reveals Hillary as a very positive spirit). The way she gives such a clear-voiced and wise autopsy of a complicated and increasingly dark series of events is genuinely inspirational. In fact, the book has a good balance of highs and lows: she is hilarious in her brevity when she recounts Trump's wedding, less so in her recollection of the inauguration. Despite all the smears against her, the book is very revealing of her true character: particularly with regards to her private life, her praise of her daughter Chelsea is so sweet, and the clear and honest writing on her marriage (always a subject for debate, it seems, when it's really none of the public's business) is good to see from her directly, though thankfully she doesn't dwell on private matters and trivialities too much. She has a good sense of public versus private as she surveys the various chapter subjects (she shows that the emails from her personal email address were just that - personal), and you can hear it in the way her tone of voice changes throughout the audiobook: you can hear how angry she is at the appropriate moments for it, but also how genuine her feeling is in the heartwarming parts.
For better or for worse, the book doesn’t dwell solely on the campaign – in the middle she talks a lot about the policies closest to her heart and (often overlapping) the most pressing issues currently facing her country, rounded off with a focus on recent events at the beginning and end. Much of the discussion is on climate change, gun control, healthcare, and (a particular priority throughout Hillary’s career) child welfare. Knowing this book would sell, she obviously wanted to direct attention towards these issues rather than being too self-focused (unlike Sanders’ book, titled “Our” Revolution but mostly about himself), and the Clintons tend to write long books, so I’m not surprised that she wanted to be comprehensive.
In my view reading her opinions is especially important given that, despite the immense amount of policy detail on her website, the media chose to focus on ‘emails’ rather than the important but ‘boring’ aspects of choosing the leader of the Free World, and many of these subjects, including climate change, were ignored by all three debates. Regardless of political affiliation, you may think you know the whole story already and don’t need to ‘re-live it’ through an almost 500-page book, but she has a vital and unique perspective on the key issues and how they played out for the worse in the campaign.
All in all, she has a lot of insight into the key issues of our day, and a lot to say about being a woman in politics (and her career in general) from her own first hand experience, and yet, whatever she does, the people who most need this message are the ones least likely to seek it out. I would just point out that she has been deeply misjudged, possibly the most misunderstood figure of our time, and I hope her detractors get over themselves before it’s too late to listen.