2022: We should all just listen to Stacey Abrams.

Often when I read a book about life after losing a major election, there's a lot of woulda, coulda, shoulda that I get frustrated with. Even though that might be true, YOU LOST, we must move on and focus on what to do next. Abrams gets exactly that, and this book wastes no time in moving from "here's what I did" to "here's what I'm doing now, and what you should do too".

Here's the deal: Abrams knows her shit. And if we were smart, we would put her in charge and let her run everything (or whatever she wanted to, no pressure!) She provides clear policy changes that would literally improve the lives of millions of people if they were implemented tomorrow. Abrams is concise, direct and to the point, and gives concrete examples and facts to backup her claims. This is a solid read that I really enjoyed (despite how enraged it also made me).

If you're looking for a memoir of Abrams' life, keep looking. Although there is some backstory in the first couple of chapters, we move straight into 2017 and her gubernatorial campaign in 2018. This book was originally published in January 2020, and what a time that was to publish a book! Some of her suggestions (especially about increasing access to voting by mail) happened naturally as a result of the pandemic. Some of them (especially about how crucial the census is) were crushing to read, knowing how 2020 played out.

My one note of criticism is that the afterwords need to be edited. There's an Afterword, an Afterword for the Paperback Edition, and an Author's Note. Each of them uses repeat sentences from the other ones, and the Author's Note contradicts the claims that Abrams didn't know who won the 2020 election. The Afterword for the Paperback Edition also tries to encapsulate her feelings about the insurrection, but it was only published on January 15, 2021, and there's just not enough space to tackle it. I am looking forward to her next book, where I am sure she will go into much further detail!