Book Review: “Going Rogue” by Sarah Palin

My Dad bought Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue for Hubby for Christmas, and then decided that a month was too long for anyone to wait to read it. Dad read it in the space of a day or two and has since been passing the book around to the rest of us to read.

I wasn’t sure what I’d think, because I haven’t been a huge Palin fan. I knew that some of my apathy was the product of media spin, but surely not all of it. I frankly didn’t have high hopes.

I was pleasantly surprised, therefore, to find myself enjoying Going Rogue. The book got progressively better until I was positively riveted by the events surrounding the 2008 US Presidential election and its aftermath.

While Palin still can rub me the wrong way on some issues, I now have a new respect for her.

It always bugged me that her ability to serve in Washington was questioned because she had children, while Obama’s young children didn’t raise the same eyebrows. In Going Rogue, Palin briefly mentions the double standard over the candidate’s families, but I think that she goes one better: she talks about being a mom and serving in politics. Juggling family and work, always wondering if both are being served well: I get that, and I appreciate the choices she has made.

The book made me realize that Palin’s voice is one that should have been heard. The media, as always, presented her to us with their own spin, but the degree of maliciousness behind that spin seems unusual in her case.

I’m also appalled at the aftermath of the election and how both she and her family have been attacked on almost every front. No one deserves that, and especially not the Palin kids.

So while I may not be a raving fan, there’s a large part of me that is cheering Palin on in whatever step she might be taking next. Go get ‘em, girl.

Bottom Line: Skip, Borrow, or Buy?

If you have a family like ours, this book is going to get passed around, so someone might as well go out and get the book for everyone else to read. It’s a read-once-and-talk-about-it kind of book. It’ll give you a new look at Palin, women in politics, and will certainly make you wonder about the profession we know as journalism.