I found Senator Elizabeth Warren’s new memoir, A FIGHTING CHANCE, so truthful it hurt. It hurt to be told the truth: The system is rigged for those who are wealthy and well-connected, a truth that doesn’t surprise, that isn’t exactly new, but is told in an eye-opening and refreshing, and at points, damn inspiring way.
From a writer's point of view...she writes (and I believe she did write this memoir herself), she writes in plain talk, simple sentences, uses small stories of her life--one great one about toaster ovens-- to make big political points.
She writes about being a newcomer to D.C. and having the idea to form the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and her huge disappoint at not being appointed its first director because she was “too radioactive.”
Warren describes being a wife, a mother, a grandmother, and about meeting American’s across the country and asking the question: Who is the American government working for? Ultimately, she answers with: “People feel like the system is rigged against them. And here’s the painful part: They’re right. The system is rigged. Look around. Oil companies guzzle down billions in subsidies. Billionaires pay lower tax rates than their secretaries. Wall Street CEOS—the same ones who wrecked our economy and destroyed millions of jobs –still strut around Congress, no shame, demanding favors, and acting like we should thank them.” She wants to celebrate success in America. But she, like so many of us, doesn’t want the game to be rigged.
I had the great opportunity to see the Senator speak in D.C. and I wanted to shout out at the end, “Run, Elizabeth, Run,” and by that I mean for President. She would have my vote.
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And if you haven’t read BEFORE MY EYES, my new young adult novel, isn’ it time for a serious young adult novel that PW and Kirkus Review calls, “gripping” about teens at the end of a long, hot summer, one hearing a voice and having a gun.