What happened by Hillary Rodham Clinton
Published: September 12th 2017 by Simon & Schuster
Genre: Non-fiction
Pages: 512

Why do you even care about American politics when you’re not american? Someone asked me in an accusatory tone. As if one country’s politics (especially a country as large as america) doesn’t affect the rest of the world somehow.

“If you don’t have voting rights, you don’t have a say and you should keep your opinion to yourself” someone else said. Which is a ridiculous statement all together, but I still I get affected by statements like these. So it is almost with a sense of taboo, that I pick up and read Hillary Rodham Clinton’s book “What Happened” on the 2016 election.

And then I arrive at this passage “Hey, Hillary Clinton, shut the f*** up and go away already.” Seriously, they printed that in the newspaper.

And then I realized that whenever somebody does not agree with you or your views, they want you to shut your mouth and go away. Weak people don’t like opposition. It’s a symptom of insecurity. But opposition is important, it’s how we evolve, it’s how we get better. It’s why I wanted to read this book. I’m not american, I couldn’t vote, but I believe in partaking in our world history. I believe in peaceful demonstration, I believe in voicing your opinion and standing up for the things that you believe in. And in order to know what you want to stand for, you have to educate yourself.

Hillary Clinton quoted Theodore Roosevelt:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

It is my favorite quote, and it is so fitting to her in this book. She made history as the first female presidential candidate nominee by a major party. People can say what they want, I chose to give credit to Hillary Clinton, a strong, successful woman who was in the arena fighting the good fight.

“For the record, it hurts to be torn apart”

The book of course, is about the 2016 election and how Hillary views what happened. It is a well organized neatly mapped out book with a good tone and a great voice – her voice. She is convincing and well rounded. There are passages where she is laugh out loud funny, there are passages where you want to cry and passages where you get angry and frustrated. My two favorite parts were the chapter “a day in the life” and the final part about “Resilience”. I didn’t have any bias towards her before, so I went in with an open mind and I have to say that I come out of it liking her a whole lot. She is far more objective than most people would be and she takes responsibility for her shortcomings. Because we all have shortcomings, even if some refuse to admit that. And in the end, she’s inspiring.

“What do we do now?” I said. There was only one answer: “Keep going.”

Side note: I would have given this book a 4 star rating on GoodReads since I thought it was a good book. Well written, interesting and left me feeling inspired. However, after reading several reviews from trump supporters giving it a 1 star, without reading it, but just to offset the ratings, I am giving 5 stars to counteract that.