Reviews

Every Day is Extra by John Kerry

djamba95's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional inspiring fast-paced

4.5

jbelang85's review against another edition

3.0

I have always had complicated feelings about John Kerry. I respect many of his positions, but thought some of his activities when he was still a military officer. I was in the Army during his presidency campaign and was deployed to Iraq during the election, and from my perspective, many veterans and service members did not seem to like him. I was hoping for some insight into why he said what he did to the Fulbright hearings. I felt his statements were overly inclusive and made Vietnam Veterans look bad. His only real explanation was that he went to the Winter Soldier meetings and heard of atrocities and then seemed to extrapolate to all veterans. His only real comment was basically "it was common, if not the majority of veterans." But I never felt his statements represented that.

Overall, the book was well written and had a lot of lat 20th and early 21st century history.

bvargo's review against another edition

2.0

Sorry, but JK has never been the epitome of personality and I found some of his pronouncements to be somewhat preachy...but, again, what else is new? Time for him to get to work on climate change.

impavid's review

4.0

This book is an interesting & honest narrative of a man who spent most of his life in public service to this country. John Kerry covers his public service from his days in the United States Navy during the Vietnam war, serving as lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, five terms as a senator and most importantly his service as Secretary of State during President Obama's second term in office. He is articulate when he talks about his experiences about joining the navy, fighting from a swift boat and eventually his disillusionment with the Vietnam war. His friendship with John McCain and their effort to ensure that there are no POWs (dead or alive) left in Vietnam is an epitome of probably two of our greatest heroes working with each other to hold on to the "no man left behind" principle. His writing while articulate, does tend to give way to some rancor about the failed presidential run and also a lament about the displacement of collegiality in the Senate. Given the current political and societal climate, it would have been easy for John Kerry to fall in to the trap of being critical of the current administration. Instead he spends pages devoted to John McCain and how they worked in a bipartisan manner to conclusively investigate POW claims.
An extremely well written book and a worthy read.