Book Review: Going Rogue

Love her or loathe her, Sarah Palin hasn’t gone anywhere. The one-time governor of Alaska turned vice presidential candidate wants to be certain her last words aren’t from a speech during the failed 2008 campaign, or the enthralling address she delivered when she quit her day job less than a year later.

In her new book, Going Rogue, Mrs. Palin offers up a scintillating tale of intrigue, romance, gritty determination, heartburn, regret, rampant leftism, freedom fighters, enormous and heartbreaking risks, a family pushed to the edge, and enduring faith in the face of heathens. It’s a coming-of-age tale in a world where up is down, left is right, right is right, right is repulsive, dumb-as-pucks is the new hip, and every woman is responsible for her own dreams taking wing. Weaving an unforgettable cast of characters in a tapestry of undulating political calculation, Mrs. Palin leads readers by the nose to a bouquet of revelation as fresh as wild Alaskan air, and by the time it’s over her readers are convinced this hockey mom will darn toot your tootin’ engine up to the glorious sky fettered with the love of Jesus and our Lord God on high in a shower of golden sunbeams. You betcha.

This unforgettable and life-changing book serves as a reintroduction for all of us to the amazing Mrs. Palin. Taking aim at her detractors with razor sharp wit, Palin acts as the judge and jury, setting the record straight and taking names, talking straight, living straight, straight as an arrow in the wind, piercing the hearts of those who hate America and would have her apologize for her hard-working values, or for being moved by the sight of the American flag rippling in the wind on Christmas morning.

Palin’s prose is vibrant and elegantly paced, full of spit, vinegar, verve, and her unique brand of homespun, feisty wisdom. Say what you will about Sarah Palin, but one thing you can’t say after reading Going Rogue is that she’s not an American citizen. Seriously, I was like, Hey! Watch the fuck out! Sarah Palin is going to wipe out the liberals in this country like a tidal wave. She’s going to make them eat the dirt in the ground on which she treads all the way to the presidency, which is where she should be if America had any sense, if Obama hadn’t lied about her and her children for an entire year, and if that awful Katie Couric hadn’t gotten in the way with her gotcha socialist media agenda.

In turns both beautiful and inspiring, Palin gives readers an up close and personal, no-nonsense telling of her life. We learn of her all-American childhood; her apple-pie romance with husband Todd; her acceptance to Yale and Harvard; her time studying abroad (skipping France, of course); her own take on her first National Book Award nomination; her improbable first run for public office; all the babies she gave birth to for the glory of God; why Levi Johnston can go to hell; how the media tried to ruin her life with their awful insistence that she make sense when she talks; her plan for America, assuming the Democrat party doesn’t spend us back to the stone age; and why she is, in fact, not too stupid to breathe air.

Ignorance isn’t just strength; it’s the blessing of the Lord for America’s time in the spotlight, a spotlight shining on the rest of us from Alaska, switched on by the inestimable, indefatigable, indispensable Sarah Palin. In this devastating and humbling memoir, Palin leads us to a better understanding of the complex ways we’re going to the places where we’re getting to. Buy this book. Save your life.