Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
"I knew I was the candidate in the strongest position to win," recollects former vice president Harris (The Truths We Hold) in this candid, blame-casting memoir of her failed 2024 presidential run. She opens with the surprise call from President Biden informing her he'd be dropping out, which not only disrupted "Sunday pancakes" with her grandnieces but also thrust her into "the shortest campaign in modern presidential history." Her day-by-day account of rallies, endorsements, TV appearances, podcasts, and ad buys amounts to a fairly sharp tell-all, with cringey moments including Biden's inopportune pre-debate call to relay that some Philadelphia bigwigs "were not going to support me because I'd been saying bad things about him" and Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro's overconfident conversation with her Naval Observatory residence manager about "how he might arrange to get Pennsylvania artists' work on loan" once he became vice president. She's especially forthcoming about her "complicated" relationship with Biden and his inner circle, who she feels didn't promote her. However, beyond brief moments of defensiveness on flashpoints like Gaza protesters ("Why weren't they protesting at Trump rallies?") and the frequency of Liz Cheney's stumping for her ("exaggerated" by the media), Harris sidesteps consideration of her own missteps, chalking her loss up to the lack of time to connect with voters. This rehash is rich in intraparty sniping, but short on campaign postmortem. (Sept.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
An insider's chronicle of a pivotal presidential campaign. Several months into the mounting political upheaval of Donald Trump's second term and following a wave of bestselling political exposés, most notably Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson'sOriginal Sin on Joe Biden's health and late decision to step down, former Vice President Harris offers her own account of the consequential months surrounding Biden's withdrawal and her swift campaign for the presidency. Structured as brief chapters with countdown headers from 107 days to Election Day, the book recounts the campaign's daily rigors: vetting a running mate, navigating back-to-back rallies, preparing for the convention and the debate with Trump, and deflecting obstacles in the form of both Trump's camp and Biden's faltering team. Harris aims to set the record straight on issues that have remained hotly debated. While acknowledging Biden's advancing decline, she also highlights his foreign-policy steadiness: "His years of experience in foreign policy clearly showed….He was always focused, always commander in chief in that room." More blame is placed on his inner circle, especially Jill Biden, whom Harris faults for pushing him beyond his limits--"the people who knew him best, should have realized thatany campaign was a bridge too far." Throughout, she highlights her own qualifications and dismisses suggestions that an open contest might have better served the party: "If they thought I was down with a mini primary or some other half-baked procedure, I was quick to disabuse them." Facing Trump's increasingly unhinged behavior, Harris never openly doubts her ability to confront him. Yet she doesn't fully persuade the reader that she had the capacity to counter his dominance, suggesting instead that her defeat stemmed from a lack of time--a theme underscored by the urgency of the book's title. If not entirely sanguine about the future, she maintains a clear-eyed view of the damage already done: "Perhaps so much damage that we will have to re-create our government…something leaner, swifter, and much more efficient." A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
