I know I’m in the minority on this, but I really don’t care for audiobooks that much. I prefer to see the written words and to read books myself. Plus, if I’m going to listen to an audiobook, I need to be doing something where I can work and listen at the same time. I can’t do that much at work, my commute is very short, and I’m usually doing other things at home.

But Audible offered me a free audiobook of my choice if I accepted their free trial, and I’d been meaning to read former president Barack Obama’s memoir, so I downloaded it to my phone. This was almost a year ago, and I’m just now finishing it (I wasn’t lying when I said I can’t listen to audiobooks very much).

This is the third presidential memoir I’ve read, the other two being the works of Ulysses S. Grant and George W. Bush. The structure of this one’s mirrored Grant’s in that it followed a linear timeline from birth and moving forward. Bush’s was the same until he reached the point in his life when he won the White House, then it changes. In ‘Decision Points’, each chapter of his presidency is devoted to a major policy issue (the economy, the war in Iraq, Katrina, etc) and it follows that issue from the start of his time in office to the end. I actually think I liked that kind of structure better.

Anyway, returning to Obama, this was a massive undertaking, a 29-hour audiobook (768 pages in hardcover). Obama spares few details and also gives far more personal anecdotes than I’ve read in other memoirs, but it’s easy to listen to because Obama himself narrates the book; say what you want about the man, he’s an eloquent speaker.

One thing I noticed about this book that was slightly annoying was this barely detectable undercurrent of destiny. Sometimes, it seemed Obama projected a bit of hindsight into his thoughts and musings years ago, giving his past self a sense of assurance that all was going according to plan that perhaps did not in fact exist at that time. Obviously, that’s pure conjecture on my part but it was what I took away from the book at certain points.

I was most interested in his recounting of the war in Afghanistan, and America’s successful assassination of Osama bin Laden. As you may know, I was a United States Marine for 4 years, serving as an infantryman and deploying twice to Afghanistan. Because of that, I feel like I have an odd, distant connection to Obama. He was my Commander-in-Chief, after all, which made his chapters on these affairs feel much more personal to me, like he was talking directly to me. When he described the aftermath of the death of bin Laden, he praised the efforts of not just the Navy SEAL’s who carried out the mission, but everyone involved, and even everyone who’d ever deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan during that time. I’m not ashamed to say I teared up a little; pride, nostalgia, and memories of the fallen rushed back all at once to create a maelstrom of emotions in me.

It’s hard to review presidential memoirs because of their propagandic nature, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. No president writes a memoir to document what a bad job he did and how incompetent he was, he will always be the good guy of the story. Case in point, Grant did not even make a passing reference to his infamous General Orders No. 11 in his memoirs. So it’s hard to say it was good or bad, except in terms of just how much one believes reality is being obscured by the author, and I didn’t get that sense much.

I did enjoy seeing things through Obama’s eyes, especially since I have vast disagreements with him. I’ve never been a Democrat and never will be (I’m also not a Republican either, and that’s about as political as I’ll get here on my blog), but I feel like I understand Obama and his policies much better now. Whatever my disagreements with him, I believe that he acted only for what he truly believed was best for the United States of America, and that’s worthy of my respect.

I didn’t know this going in, but apparently this was just part one of a two-part series, so it ends with the death of bin Laden. I’ll have to buy part two when that comes out to finish the rest of his administration (thanks, Obama!). I do recommend this to anyone with an interest in American history and current events. If you liked Obama, you’ll enjoy this closer look at his life. If you didn’t, maybe you’ll at least come away with an appreciation for his viewpoint of things.