A review by imogenreads
A Promised Land by Barack Obama

3.5

Near the beginning (by which I mean within the first 200 pages) Obama talks about a campaign flaw of his being that he could not succinctly answer a question; he would have to discuss every single aspect of what lead to the problem and the multi-pronged response required to deal with it. He did improve on speaking in sound-bites, and so saved up all his lengthy explanations for this book 😝 But, that's his prerogative, and yea, political shit does normally have many complex causes you can't ignore. The economic stuff was a struggle to get through but the foreign affairs stuff was quite interesting. I feel I understand more now why and how the US puts its fingers in sooo many pies. But still, American exceptionalism truly is quite the drug. It will be interesting to read some reviews on what he didn't include.

Michelle Obama's book (like many, I loved it) talked a bit about the difficulties in their marriage. However, hers had me feeling a lot more sympathy for Barack than his own did! Honestly I was like girl, Divorce. Unlike hers there never really felt like there had been a reconciliation between the two? And I was like brah, I know you're the busy president of the US but maybe go to bed at the same time as your wife once in a blue moon.

I look forward to the next 1000 page behemoth.