Morain gives readers the public Harris on her own terms: a leader who rose to power in the crowded terrain of California politics ... Morain is admiring of Harris and forgives her for the policy compromises that still attract criticism ... Morain relies on insights he gathered in his time covering California politics, bolstered by interviews with Harris’s colleagues through the years, giving the book the feel of an insider’s tale. But without access to the vice president-elect or her family, Morain cannot get to the inner Kamala Harris. Curiously, Kamala’s Way provides little on how racism and sexism shaped Harris’s path. In his effort to explain her character, Morain comes very close to trading in old, pernicious stereotypes about Black women, though perhaps unwittingly so ... this story about how she ran the gantlet of American politics will leave readers admiring Harris for how she has not only survived but thrived.
As Dan Morain makes plain in this detailed and dutiful biography, Ms. Harris is notably less moderate (or, if you’d prefer, more progressive) than Mr. Biden—and so, naturally, a source of strength to voters on the left ... Morain is a writer deferential to Ms. Harris. Word choices are telling ... The virtue of Mr. Morain’s book lies not in elegance, to which it makes no claim, nor in its revelations ... It lies, instead, in a prosaic but sturdy completeness of story. Ms. Harris—as is her prerogative—omitted much detail from her own autobiography. Mr. Morain has filled in many of those blanks[.]
Kamala's Way isn't particularly revelatory, dryly detailing her early days in the Alameda County district attorney's office in California, as well as the political allies and adversaries she encountered during her rise. Although meticulously reported, it occasionally reads like a slapdash Wikipedia page rather than a compelling narrative. But after the circus of the outgoing presidential administration, there is a level of comfort reading an exhaustive account of a lawmaker just putting in the work. It isn't a mere puff piece either, as Morain rightfully holds Harris accountable for her past support of capital punishment and mass incarceration policies.
Dan Morain...doesn’t have any scoops in Kamala’s Way. He has done a workmanlike job of assessing her passions and her accomplishments. But often his best details are lifted directly from her own autobiography ... All her life, Harris has made a habit of exceeding expectations. This book suggests she will do that again as vice-president—and that one day she might also excel as America’s first woman, first Indian and second Black president.
It’s a positive, supportive, slightly happy-clappy take on the incoming vice-president, but in these dismal times who’s arguing with that? Dan Morain is a fair-minded biographer with enough access...to make this more than a cuttings job. The Kamala Harris who emerges from these pages is accomplished and politically savvy, perhaps to a fault ... Kamala’s Way suggests that Harris, for all the stuff about her being a first, has got where she is by fitting in with the established way of behaving in American politics. This is not necessarily a criticism—how else was she supposed to get so far, so fast—but it raises the question of how different she would be if she were to become president ... Kamala’s Way does not spare its subject when it comes to her run.
[Morain's] insider’s view provides a revealing portrait of the people and events surrounding Harris’s rise to political stardom ... Morain paints Harris as a pragmatic, ambitious politician ... Despite his inclusion of stories that show Harris’s warmth outside the limelight, his biography is not fawning. Nor is it very personal ... This book is unlikely to satisfy readers enamored of the nation’s barrier-breaking vice president, who may find Morain’s judgments at times unduly critical, and his use of phrases like 'brusque and antagonistic style' and 'brash confidence' as distinctly gendered. At the same time, Kamala’s Way could appeal to aficionados of California politics who want a better understanding of the high-powered political world where Harris’s national star rose.
... well-informed yet somewhat impersonal look at Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’s journey to the White House ... Morain stuffs his account with details of California politics and skillfully mines Harris’s public comments for information, but doesn’t get far beyond her public persona. Still, this is a brisk and evenhanded account of Harris’s trailblazing career.
