What The Reviewers Say

Positive

Based on 12 reviews

Shortest Way Home: One Mayor's Challenge and a Model for America's Future

Pete Buttigieg

What The Reviewers Say

Positive

Based on 12 reviews

Shortest Way Home: One Mayor's Challenge and a Model for America's Future

Pete Buttigieg

Positive
E.J. Dionne Jr.,
The Washington Post
There are moments here where Buttigieg seems to be pushing things a bit: The story of his piano recital with the South Bend Orchestra is cute but not the stuff of greatness. On the other hand, his candid discussion of what it’s like to come out as gay while serving as a small-city mayor and, especially, his warm and engagingly hokey description of falling in love with the man who would become his husband break important new ground in a pre-presidential autobiography.
Mixed
Adam Nagourney,
The New York Times Book Review
Until he recounts writing his coming-out essay for The South Bend Tribune, I had begun to wonder if Buttigieg had decided to airbrush his life story, with an eye to some future opposition researcher combing through these pages. This lends a cautious, sanitized feeling to some episodes.
Mixed
Caroline Fraser,
New York Review of Books
Buttigieg somehow relates this charmed life with suitable self-effacement, eyes cast modestly downward as in the photograph on the book’s cover, a not unimpressive feat given the perfection of his résumé.
Positive
Katie Noah Gibson,
Shelf Awareness
Buttigieg's warm, thoughtful narrative voice reflects his approach to local politics: seeing people as individuals who are also part of their community and figuring out how to make their lives better. During a turbulent moment in national politics, it's refreshing to read an account of hope, compassion and plain hard work at the local level. Buttigieg's story is particular to South Bend, but it offers insights for those working to lead cities around the country. His personal journey—as a local boy returning home, a Navy Reserve officer juggling his day job and commitment to his country, and a gay man coming out and finding love while in the public eye—is equally compelling..
Positive
Harrison Hill,
The Los Angeles Review of Books
The book is clearly intended as a campaign document, and contains all the humanizing anecdotes and professional backstory typical of a political memoir. But Shortest Way Home is more than just a stump speech with a dust jacket. It’s a vivid and surprisingly lyrical portrait of a city and a man in transition — and an intellectual performance in which Buttigieg succeeds in making his play at the presidency seem entirely, thrillingly appropriate.
Positive
Kathleen McBroom,
Booklist
Readers will find telling insights into the events that shaped Buttigieg’s biggest decisions and share a typical day in the mayor’s office; relive Buttigieg’s tour of duty in Afghanistan (while he was still acting mayor); and understand his angst over being a young, gay public figure trying to get a date (spoiler alert: there’s a happy ending!). First and foremost a great, engaging read, this is also an inspiring story of a millennial making a difference..
Positive
Laura Farmer,
The Gazette
... Buttigieg writes astutely about real issues facing our communities, such as the proverbial brain-drain of talent and youth; the economic effects of the loss of manufacturing jobs, and how to continue building community across racial, economic and religious lines.
Pan
Barton Swaim,
The Wall Street Journal
The book’s purpose isn’t to tell a great story but to signal the author’s political viability.
Mixed
Peggy O\\\' Donnell,
The Los Angeles Review of Books
Shortest Way Home is a story of changing minds by focusing on the local, the interpersonal, and the everyday. It is a seductive notion, especially filtered as it is through the good-natured humor and obvious love for his home city that animates Buttigieg’s prose. Yet a campaign memoir is a political proposal as much as it is a work of literature, and the narrative is at its thinnest where it draws the proposal’s contours. Buttigieg’s vision for an equitable society...reads as vague and academic, notably out of keeping with the practical granularity of other examples of his governing philosophy.
Positive
Kirkus
Buttigieg’s memoir/policy manual has all the signs of a book meant to position a candidate nationally, and his easy movement among and membership in many constituencies (gay, military veteran, liberal, first-generation American, etc.) suggests an interesting political future. For the moment, a valuable rejoinder to like-minded books by Daniel Kemmis, Mitch Landrieu, and other progressive city-scale CEOs..
Positive
Daniel Clarke,
The Times Literary Supplement (UK)
[Buttigieg] can write. And if at times he is merely elegantly formulaic, smoothing all experience into a sleekly 'wannabe President' presentation of his story, at others he’s plain elegant.
Positive
Publishers Weekly
Buttigieg, mayor and native of South Bend, Ind., manifests a decent, positive, and reflective presence in this upbeat and readable memoir.