Surprisingly suspenseful, despite not being a “who dunnit.”

Written from the point of view of Karen Hollander, a successful, 65-year old female lawyer who withdrew her name from consideration for nomination to the United States Supreme Court, with frequent flashbacks to her life from age 8-20. Although the reader knows from the beginning that the pivotal events in her life occurred during her early college years and suspects that these pivotal events are the cause for the withdrawing of her name, most of the 438 pages build toward a full explanation of what exactly occurred.

Ms. Hollander is a life-long liberal, and at times a radical liberal, who jettisons most of her Catholic faith at a young age. If you are of liberal political persuasion, or you are able to set aside your other political views, this will likely be an enjoyable read for you.

I expected this book to contain courtroom drama – it does not. Instead it is an historical and retrospective biographical story of growing up as a radical in the 60’s: from small town Illinois to Harvard College, and beyond. Although there is a tremendous amount of 1960’s political and cultural information in the book, it reads smoothly and builds to a satisfying conclusion. I found that, in places the book dragged a little, weighed down by too much detail for my taste; others may disagree.

Disclosure: I was randomly selected from among numerous GoodReads readers to receive an advance copy of this book; I have read it and this is my honest evaluation. I have no connection with this author or publisher and have received nothing from anyone in consideration for publishing this review.