Battle for the Soul

Interesting look into the interpersonal dynamics of the Democrats' primary campaigns, but hindered by issues with the writing. I gradually grew accustomed to Dovere's style, but having just read some much more coherently constructed non-fiction books, Battle for the Soul's style was a bit jarring. Even by the end of the book I found that some sentences were difficult to parse. Dovere's book isn't so much a work of political analysis as it is a play-by-play of who said what, when. If you want to know which Democrats told which other Democrats to go eff themselves (and I certainly do), this is your book. The focus isn't a bad thing, per se, but I would have appreciated more analysis along with the “tea.”

Dovere structures Battle in roughly chronological order, but he deviates from chronology with such great frequency that it's difficult to keep track of events at points. Dovere opens every chapter by designating the respective time period that it covers, yet some chapters begin their prose with flashbacks to events before the time period listed in bold on the very same page! It gets confusing.

The author also seems to have a strangely contemptuous view of all the candidates besides Biden—while he isn't afraid to criticize Biden, it's clear that he reserves a lower level of acrimony for the President than for any of the other candidates. One chapter opens with Andrew Yang's throwing up because he is so nervous to appear on the debate stage, and this despite the fact that Yang has no role in the rest of the chapter. Why? Am I supposed to delight in another human being's suffering just because Dovere didn't think his campaign was serious enough?

The book definitely picked up for me towards the end, as the events covered (George Floyd protests, COVID-19, concern about Trump overturning the election results) are fresher in my mind. Battle for the Soul was worth a read, but I don't think I'll be returning to more political books by this author.