Litt takes stock of the Obama administration’s legacy as someone who dedicated a portion of his life to it and, more important, as someone who believed in it. While he frames himself as a simple romantic comedy hero — wide-eyed, a bit hapless, prone to slapstick — he wrestles with larger ideas of optimism in the face of cynicism ... As one might expect from the lead speechwriter for four White House Correspondents’ Dinners, Litt is a funny and skillful storyteller. His humor is safe more than edgy, but what he lacks in zingers he makes up for in brilliantly observed descriptions ... When, however, Litt’s journey dovetails with the more historical, headline-grabbing elements, the memoir soars ... Thanks, Obama is alchemical, wringing comedy, pathos and a nation’s hope out of one man’s stumble through the halls of power. While the first half of the book is enjoyable, the second half is masterly, rising to a crescendo that is as rousing as, well, a particularly inspiring campaign speech.

Thanks, Obama is a compendium of patriotic lessons that may or may not endure; it feels like a time capsule or a magical portal to a republic turned to smoke. It can be disorienting, as when the author describes Donald Trump’s comeuppance—and, it was then presumed, political annihilation—at Obama’s hands during the 2011 nerd prom ... I consumed Thanks, Obama as a eulogy, a call to action, and a fervent rearticulation of first principles. But it’s hard not to also experience it as the setup for a terrible cosmic punch line. Of course, none of this is the book’s fault! The book itself is immensely appealing. In addition to Litt’s warm and engaging prose, it benefits from the inherent charm of its premise: the little guy brushing shoulders with the unthinkably powerful ... Certainly, there is a bit of elision here: Litt, a white male Ivy League graduate, is not quite the zero his comedic/fairy-tale setup needs him to be. But you never doubt that he feels like one ... But Thanks, Obama distinguishes itself as a feat of thinking, not just telling. Litt’s years in the White House have given him insight into the political moment ... Litt minted his star converting world affairs into jokes. The translation of satire back to sincerity is trickier to pull off, and lands with its own undeniable grace.

Litt’s memoir is structured as a collection of speeches, with each chapter built on a central anecdote or metaphor...It’s a clever meta-schtick, and he gets away with it because of the book’s greatest strength: its detailed and entertaining look at how presidential speeches are written. But it also means that each chapter is dependent on the strength of its anecdotes. When they work, it’s a limber, funny and illuminating book. This is especially true near the end, when Litt reckons with the importance of public service, his boss’s legacy, and feeling like an old man in a young White House. (He’s 30 years old.) When they don’t, Litt’s overeager style can grate, giving the book the feel of a 300-page Shouts & Murmurs article.

It’s tough to make your readers laugh when you feel all the characters in your story were basically decent, competent and basically admirable people. Instead of ridiculing his boss or his colleagues, he mostly ridicules himself—and that’s where he scores some laughs ... Mr. Litt is at his best chronicling the ludicrous mayhem of campaign life ... The author seems to realize that his admiration for Mr. Obama deprives his book of some of the satirical fun and narrative tension it might otherwise have, and he tries to solve the problem by recounting his disgust with the candidate after the first presidential debate of 2012, when Mr. Obama, clearly unprepared, was trounced by Mitt Romney. 'My days in Obamaworld weren’t finished,' he writes. 'But my days as an Obamabot were done.' That’s about all the displeasure with his boss he can muster, and to my mind it’s not enough. I wondered, too, why Mr. Litt felt it necessary in a memoir as funny as this one to put off half the audience by taking gratuitous shots at conservatives.

Litt’s knack for humor shines throughout the book, which is packed with laugh-out-loud anecdotes like the time he got caught in his underwear in the Air Force One coat closet or stories of dealing with the surly stray cat a member of the Secret Service fed outside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building ... even as Trump tries his best to destroy Obama’s legacy, Litt is confident it can survive. That may be the same kind of idealistic thinking that once led him to believe that Obama 'was the best possible version of a human,' but for readers playing that same game, a bit of hope and nostalgia is a powerful thing.

That’s just one of dozens of droll lines in Litt’s Thanks, Obama: My Hopey, Changey White House Years, which could be the funniest White House memoir you’ll ever read ... Unless Monica Lewinsky was a rabid Rue McClanahan fan, he may be the only person ever to sing the theme from The Golden Girls in the Oval Office for POTUS's enlightenment. For just that reason, his take on Obama’s personality and temperament has some interesting wrinkles ... the book also provides some nicely monitored close-up views of Obama’s gradations of impatience when other people aren’t ... Litt is at his most attractive when he indulges his readers’ craving for inside dope on all the stupid, menial details of everyday life inside the ultimate power bubble ... Litt is a first-rate, self-deprecating cutup, but he didn’t fall in love with Obama in 2008 because he dreamed of writing presidential one-liners. He was a hope-and-change true believer.

Litt, while obviously a fan of the former president, does more than just shower affection on Obama and gaze longingly at his Shepard Fairey poster. He delivers a thoughtful and funny account of life as a minnow surrounded by Washington’s self-important whales. Litt took his job seriously, but never himself, and that makes for enjoyable reading. While his account should appeal to those of all political persuasions interested in what happens inside the White House, it’s hard to see many on the right embracing his view of the 44th president ... Litt's books ranks with other classics from former White House speechwriters, such as Peggy Noonan's What I Saw at the Revolution about the Reagan administration. It's worth a read, even if Litt's revolution wasn't one you agreed with.

...a fast, funny ride through the halls of power ... for every White House men’s room anecdote or gee-whiz moment, Litt offers piercing assessments of the nature of our politics ... President Obama’s running question to Litt was, 'so, are we funny?' Yes, they are—and insightful, too.

Litt’s tale shares a starry-eyed sensibility and gratification in personal good fortune—in his case, landing a dream job soon after graduating from Yale—with other accounts published by former Obama staffers. However, he manages to come off as not (too) privileged or self-important, candidly recollecting some of his biggest gaffes as a White House speechwriter ... Veering between tragedy and comedy, between self-doubt and hubris, Litt vividly recreates a period during which he saw his words sometimes become the words of a nation.