PositiveSan Francisco ChronicleThe kid’s got a story to tell, about how a cub reporter felled a titan of science and higher ed, all while doing normal undergrad things like hallucinating his way through a term paper, (theoretically) going to class and breaking up with his high school girlfriend ... Paints a Hollywood-ready, more-absurd-than-parody Stanford where the lawn fountains might as well be filled with $100 bills ... He also often characterizes himself as the sole principled one ... It’s hard to pen scenes like these without looking self-justifying. As excellent a journalist as Baker turns out to be, he’s less successful as a memoirist, whose task isn’t to build a case but to tug the strings of the self’s knot. With more maturity, the current college senior might have more self-awareness of how such lines come off ... For now, though, what a journalist. If Baker’s portrait of Stanford could be its own movie...is gripping account of how a tip turned into a history-making investigation has the makings of All the President’s Men.
RaveSan Francisco ChronicleSurprisingly pleasurable ... A campaign memoir that campaigns refreshingly little by the standards of the genre ... Trump proved one can get elected without feigning shame of privilege. Newsom doesn’t try to hide it either, making it grist for the storytelling mill.
PanSan Francisco ChronicleJust because you’re good at writing about politics doesn’t mean you should write about yourself ... Her prose vacillates between purple and incoherent, a la the ramblings of an adolescent diary.
