2020: WOW so much has changed since 2005. That's the biggest takeaway I have from this book. This book is a memoir / civics lesson / Obama's presidential platform / random thoughts. It was not as biographical as Dreams from My Father, which I enjoyed more. Michelle Obama's Becoming is also about ten times better than this rambling.

I don't know enough about all of Obama's policies to know if this was a manifesto that turned into his platform to run for president, but it was fascinating to hear him reference and criticize past presidents' before he knew that he would become one of them. I imagine that many of his thoughts and perspectives have changed since then; he makes the case that liberals should view conservatives wanting free access to guns to be the same way liberals want free access to libraries. I simply CANNOT stand for that.

Obama makes a compelling argument for keeping religion out of policy-making, while acknowledging how difficult it is to leave your own personal experiences outside of your policies. He spends an entire chapter bemoaning how far we have to go towards racial equity in this country, but I can't help but to think that he would view us in a worse spot currently with Trump in office. There's a great, final feminist "how to be a father" lesson at the end of the book, which is a nice touch, but it's nowhere near as good as Michelle's version in Becoming. Honestly, at this point, just go read that.