Because he held to the good and transcended the bad, in Obama's genesis millions of us will find hope . . . his search to know and forgive his absent Kenyan father holds lessons for us all. Especially in relative terms, his clear prose is refreshing.
Ross Leckie, The Times

With its honesty and cool language, and by virtue of having a story worth telling, the book impresses far more than the typical political memoir.
Colin Waters, Sunday Herald

Obama is a subtle writer, with an extraordinary breadth of vision.
Margaret Elphinstone, Sunday Herald

Whatever else people expect from a politician, it's not usually a beautifully written personal memoir steeped in honesty. Barack Obama has produced one.
Oona King, The Times

This may be the best-written memoir ever produced by an American politician.
Joe Klein, Time

This book is simply justified, whatever its long-term political significance may or may not be, as a rich and rewarding read
Herald

It is an almost illicit pleasure to be reading the unspun memories of a man who may yet become president of the US.
Guardian

...it is a well-written account of Obama's struggle to establish his own views on identity and race, and all the more entertaining for its honesty.
Elaine Moore, Financial Times

A remarkable story, beautifully told.
Robert McCrum, Observer

Obama's writing is characterised throughout by a graceful eloquence, a generosity of perception and spirit rare in young men of many gifts and charisma . . . here is a testimony for the ages.
Candace Allen, Independent

Obama has written a memoir . . . that evokes the anguish of miscegenation yet culminates in a cry of faith in human community . . . Obama is a born narrator, with a mastery of colour, scene and personality, deftly stirring them into the melting pot of a shared American identity. Rarely has that identity found so vivid a portraitist.
Simon Jenkins, Sunday Times

Worthy of attention in its own right . . . his prose is both vivid and engrossing.
New Nation

The only politician's life I have read that made me cry . . . elegant and surprising prose as well as a solid personal statement.
Ian Kelly, The Times

[Obama] writes with candour about racism, bigotry and hardship, but always there is a sense of wisdom - you feel you are in the presence of a very mature man . . . You will not fail to be moved by Obama's warmth and humility.
Good Book Guide

Consciously or not, Obama has placed his book in a literary tradition of political prose that goes back to another master of the American language: Abraham Lincoln.
Robert McCrum, Observer

It is unheard of for major American politician to write as well as this. ... His story has become so familiar at least in the States, that it's approaching the folkloric status of George Washington and the cherry tree.
August Kleinzahler, London Review Of Books

Beautifully crafted . . . moving and candid . . . this book belongs on the shelf beside works like James McBride's The Color of Winter and Gregory Howard Williams's Life on the Color Line as a tale of living astride America's racial categories..
Scott Turow

Fluidly, calmly, insightfully, Obama guides us straight to the intersection of the most serious questions of identity, class, and race.
Washington Post Book World

[Barack Obama] is that rare politician who can actually write - and write movingly and genuinely.
Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

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