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3.5
Forgetting to Be Afraid
ByPublisher Description
A deeply personal memoir by one of the country’s brightest new political stars, Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis.
On the 26th of June, 2013, Texas state senator Wendy Davis became an overnight political sensation and a hero to womens’ rights supporters across the country. Davis stood and spoke on the floor of the state legislature for nearly eleven hours to run out the clock on a sweeping bill that aimed to close all but five abortion clinics in Texas. During that time, she wasn’t allowed to eat, drink, sit, use the bathroom, speak off-topic, or lean against any furniture. When it was over, President Obama tweeted support to his 40 million Twitter followers, and Wendy Davis was suddenly a household name.
But Davis’s personal story is as compelling, if not more so, than her public theatrics. Raised by a single mother with a ninth-grade education, Davis began working after school at age fourteen to help support her mom and three siblings. By nineteen, she had been married and filed for divorce while living with her baby daughter in a trailer park, a single mother trying to hold down two jobs. After putting herself through Texas Christian University and making it to Harvard Law School, then serving for nine years on the Fort Worth city council, Davis set her sights on the Texas state senate—and in 2008 defeated a longtime GOP incumbent in a race widely considered one of the biggest recent upsets in Texas politics.
Now, Davis is making a serious run to become the first Democratic governor of Texas in nearly two decades. With her singular narrative and tremendously exciting political future, this is bound to be the political memoir of the year.
On the 26th of June, 2013, Texas state senator Wendy Davis became an overnight political sensation and a hero to womens’ rights supporters across the country. Davis stood and spoke on the floor of the state legislature for nearly eleven hours to run out the clock on a sweeping bill that aimed to close all but five abortion clinics in Texas. During that time, she wasn’t allowed to eat, drink, sit, use the bathroom, speak off-topic, or lean against any furniture. When it was over, President Obama tweeted support to his 40 million Twitter followers, and Wendy Davis was suddenly a household name.
But Davis’s personal story is as compelling, if not more so, than her public theatrics. Raised by a single mother with a ninth-grade education, Davis began working after school at age fourteen to help support her mom and three siblings. By nineteen, she had been married and filed for divorce while living with her baby daughter in a trailer park, a single mother trying to hold down two jobs. After putting herself through Texas Christian University and making it to Harvard Law School, then serving for nine years on the Fort Worth city council, Davis set her sights on the Texas state senate—and in 2008 defeated a longtime GOP incumbent in a race widely considered one of the biggest recent upsets in Texas politics.
Now, Davis is making a serious run to become the first Democratic governor of Texas in nearly two decades. With her singular narrative and tremendously exciting political future, this is bound to be the political memoir of the year.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesForgetting to Be Afraid Reviews
3.5
“Left off p. 65 - may finish at a later date, but it's time to move on to other books for now.”
“Wendy Davis is a bad ass. From a difficult childhood leading to dropping out of college and living in a trailer park, to working her way through undergrad and eventually law school, she’s run the gamut of socio-economic experience. Her emotional vulnerability and maturity felt like a cool glass of water in these parched political times. She gets into some really personal stuff, divorces, miscarriages, and seems to emerge un-embittered. If anything it really gives clarity and authenticity to her platform and decision to run for office.
The negatives in the book are more form than function. The book at times reads like a bad run on sentence. And personally, as someone who loves multiple clauses, the more the merrier I say, just stuff em all into your sentences, Wendy gets a bit convoluted with her writing. You know how legal writing puts people to sleep? “The party of that party has no party to party down at the party with.” That kind of stuff? I think all that legal stuff has seeped into her brain and lodged itself there like a mildly annoying pod person. This book needs a good editing. But after listening to Wendy speak, it’s in her voice. I think she might actually dream in legalese. She does not perform a filibuster, she is a filibuster. She has become one with the Filibuster.*
I think the content carries the book well enough. I found myself gaining a lot of admiration and respect for her throughout the book. The end bits about her “majestic” filibuster felt like they’re pandering just a bit. But overall Wendy seems like an incredibly admirable person.
* HMU if you need a speechwriter Wendy. Happy to plagiarize Johnnie Favs.”
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