Cody Keenan’s Grace takes the reader behind the scenes into ten summer days of President Obama’s penultimate year as head of state. Before I nitpick one point in the book, I wish to first present a positive front that I really did enjoy Grace. President Obama, as Keenan points out, really was America’s first President who was, and is, a writer. Grace provided a unique perspective into Keenan’s speech writing minuet with Obama and his incredible ability to transform a draft into an unforgettable speech within an hour. In every speech that Keenan drafted in mid-June 2015, Obama, through his myriad legal and political experience, quickly gripped the salient issues, rebuilt the draft’s foundations into bedrock, and, as noted by anonymous letters written to Obama, struck a chord with his audiences by implementing hope into the crux of every speech. For these reasons, I found Grace extremely inspiring: a peak behind the curtain to gaze at the brilliant writer occupying the oval office. While I lack the fortuitous position of having Obama as my draft editor, Grace enabled me to craft my writings with a new tenor—even if I never plan on speaking to an audience bigger than three people.

Now for my issue with Grace: the subtitle. I found the subtitle of the book—President Obama and ten days in the battle for America, to be a misnomer. When I think of Obama’s presidency, I picture the iconic photo of Obama, along with his top advisors, sitting in the situation room anxiously watching as SEAL Team Six raided Osama bin Laden’s compound. Therefore, when reading the commanding subtitle, I expected each day to truly display Obama putting out extensive fires covering an array of political topics. Perhaps if the subtitle included the applicable dates in parathesis I would have been more knowledgeable as to what pertinent events where to be covered. While I may have hung on this issue more than necessary, the reason I found myself doing so was because multiple days in Obamas “Ten Days in the Battle for America” simply consisted of Keenan working overtime to finalize drafts while taking the reader on side journeys of his past. Thus, if the subtitle simply read: My Time as President Obama’s Chief Legal Writer in the Summer of 2015, I, the reader, would have been better prepared for what the pages held. Moreover, this revised subtitle would have assisted me in getting through multiple points in the book where Keenan heavily discusses how hard he was working on the drafts—staying up for days straight, not going home, drinking copious amounts of coffee. There is nothing wrong with inputting this into the book—if anything it added more character to the man writing these vital speeches—but I truly was expecting a read that presented a linier timeline following Obama for ten consecutive days.

Although the subtitle caused me to be surprised as to some of the content in the book, I must add that the sheer number of unpresented events that took place in mid-June 2015 makes complete sense as to why Keenan should have, and did, publish Grace. From the horrible, racist mass shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, to the Supreme Court holding a constitutional right for gay marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges, it is safe to say that Obama and his speech writers were under mass amounts of political pressure and of course, quite busy. I say this because I do not want my short rant on the subtitle to belittle any of the events that took place. Grace is filled with hope, mourning, and redemption. And when aggregated together, Grace brought out strong emotions (especially Obama’s decision to sing Amazing Grace at the eulogy in Charleston). I miss having Obama in the White House, and Cody Keenan’s unique perspective on the Obama administration added new insight into a President I already respect so much.