PositiveNPR[Yovanovitch\'s] memoir, Lessons From the Edge, is a front row seat to the disinformation campaign that ultimately saw her removed from her last overseas post: U.S. ambassador to Ukraine ... This book also provides insight into the post-Soviet Union politics of Russia and Ukraine, both now dominating the news. And it pays homage to Foreign Service Officers (FSOs) and the work they do, and a career that still remains a mystery to many Americans ... She didn\'t seek to be an iconoclast. She writes that in testifying she didn\'t want to burn down the house. If anything, she seems to have written this memoir not just to finally be able to speak up for herself, but also to inform people about the work FSOs do for America, supporting whoever is elected to lead.
Huma Abedin
PositiveNPR[Abedin\'s] admiration for the woman she\'s worked for more than 20 years, and who reportedly views Abedin as a second daughter, is on full display ... While most people will be interested in the politics or the scandals, it\'s the story of her parents — their family\'s history — that sheds the most light on who Abedin is ... Her faith is on full display in this book. It makes it a little disappointing, though, that she doesn\'t address the islamophobia that has been a concern for many Muslim-Americans head on until pretty late in the book ... For someone who has had to say \'No\' to some powerful people and who is at her core a private person, she has no trouble putting limits to how much she shares in this memoir.
Madeleine Albright
MixedNPRThe book reflects the energy and churn of [Albrights\'s] post-State Department life. It zigs-zags from subject to subject, keeping you on your toes, never quite sure where the next paragraph will take you ... veers like a conversation, albeit a one-sided one. And like any conversation with someone you know, there are stories you\'ve heard before. Afterall Albright\'s afterlife includes book writing, and this memoir recounts the previous six: from how and why she wrote a book about her pins to her family\'s immigration to the United States. But even a well-trod story can have a new nugget ... If there is a weakness in this memoir, it\'s one that Albright points out herself. She\'s \'not especially introspective\' ... I liked the professorial sections of the book. They\'re interesting, funny and I learned a thing or two about policy making post-government. But you\'ll also get that in the books that have been, and will be, written about her ... What resonated with me most were the human moments, those real thoughts you have when contemplating life, death and everything in between...That recognition of experience, of a life of service, or a life well lived is in the book, but in bits and pieces. It\'s like panning for gold. You have to work to get it. But when you do find that nugget, it is something to be treasured.
Susan Rice
PositiveNPR... candid ... personal and honest ... In a clear, systematic way, like the policy veteran she is, [Rice] takes each Benghazi charge leveled against her and swats it down point by point ... However, Rice is also honest about the Obama administration\'s foreign policy failures ... she owns up to her decisions — the good and the bad ... In many ways, this memoir is an ode to public service.
Samantha Power
MixedNPRIt\'s a great platitude, but her memoir also shows a person can care more and work harder and still get U.S. policy that is weak, unsuccessful or wrong, like Syria, Ukraine, Crimea or Yemen (one of this century\'s worst humanitarian disasters, beginning under the Obama administration, which barely gets a mention in the book) ... At times, this memoir feels a mile wide and inch deep. But when she does really dig down, you get a better sense of who Power is—a flawed, complicated and complex human being like the rest of us. She opens up ... is an idealist, but now with realistic expectations for what governments and the people making policy decisions can — or cannot — achieve.
