emoryp 's review for:

How to Stand Up to a Dictator by Maria Ressa

2.75

hopeful inspiring slow-paced

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Maria Ressa is obviously an admirable and heroic activist for fighting against press censorship in the Phillipines. This book, however, falls flat; it's like she wrote a Ted Talk then expanded it into a laborious book. It reads as part memoir, part lengthy award acceptance speech, part call to action and it never coalesces into something enjoyable to read. Ressa is someone who has succeeded throughout her life and thus believes all her opinions are correct, which makes some of her writing come across as artificial. There's one passage where she compares her organization's (Rappler) actions to other news orgs.--point by point--and explains away how awesome their actions were to others; another explains how multiple of her opinions were not followed and the negative consequences that resulted. 

The most interesting portions were on authoritarian govt actions and her responses as a journalist. These provided insightful and powerful testimony. Besides that, this book is a miss.