Cody Keenan's book Grace is an exceptional account of his time as a speechwriter in the White House and President Barack Obama's ability to maintain grace and decorum in the face of emotional disasters and hardships. His writing is engaging and poetic as he walks you through many historic moments in the Obama White House and explains the background and thinking behind some major events in the United States and beyond. If you're interested in an inside look of presidential politics, this is an amazing book, regardless of whether you're an Obama fan or not.

Cody Keenan was a speech writer for President Obama. This book examines the 10 days leading up to and including the memorial service for Rev. Pinckney who was shot in the AME Baptist Church in Charlestown, SC by a white supremist.
The book is broken down into days from the point of the shooting until the day of the memorial service. It is also told in memories of previous speeches written for and delivered by President Obama.
It touches upon the topics of race and racism; guns, mass shootings, the second amendment, and gun control; LGBTQ rights, American Care Act, and the Supreme Court; politics, Congressional stalemates, President Obama, and briefly in the epilogue, President Trump.
It is well told and at times brought me to tears. It showed a brief glimpse into the life of a speech writer for the White House.

I cant say enough good things about this book. Cody is Obamas top speechwriter while in the White House and for years after. He takes you on a journey of what its like to work for an administration that has so much heart and wants to do good in this world - and they did! I could not put this book down, which is not usually the case with non fiction for me. I was intrigued with what it was like to work in the White House and what those 10 days were like -- 10 days after a gunman shot up a predominantly African American Church, the supreme court was about to rule on Marriage Equality and also Obamacare. This is a refreshing read after what our country has gone through. This administration cared so much about doing good. It was very interesting to see how involved Obama was in each speech and statement he made. It makes you wonder how different this country would have been if he was in office during Covid. It also shows the polarizing difference in the Trump years. This book will give you hope and make you want to do your part to do good in this country (without sounding preachy at all). We can all make a difference and Cody Keenan sure did! Kudos!

I received an advanced copy of Grace by Cody Keenan from the publisher Mariner Books through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is the memoir of Cody Keenan who served as chief speechwriter for Obama during the second term. The memoir focuses on a very intense week of the administration, where they are waiting for the supreme court decisions about gay marriage and the affordable care act. Then a white supremacist opens fire on a bible group in Charleston, South Carolina, and triggers a national reckoning about the confederate flag.

This book is hard to review with my standard style, so I'm just gonna give my thoughts. I thought this book was really intriguing and you can certainly tell Keenan is a talented writer who can tell a story. We are transported back to one of the most intense week's of the Obama administration, where there is a ton going on.

This book is a reminder of what leadership is, what grace is and it feels like we are back in a time period, where it seemed like we all understood things were wrong. While this book doesn't shy away from the increased polarization of the times, it does feel like a time where we could be unified still and it was nostalgic and hopeful for a future where Americans can maybe come together again.

Keenan captures Obama's incredible leadership style and it felt like reading a bit of "The West Wing".

If I have one critique, I felt the origin stories of Keenan's role in the White House and evolution of Obama's positions felt a little out of place and abrupt. However, that's a small thing.

I would recommend if you need a book about showing political grace.

Hands down the best book I’ve read in 2022 and the best Obama-era book I’ve ever read. Keenan is an exceptionally talented writer and he tells a story of these ten days with, to steal from his book, grace. I learned so much.

Grace, by Cody Keenan, takes us into the Obama West Wing during a turbulent ten-day period, which included decisions determining the fate of the Affordable Care and the Marriage Equality Acts, the massacre of parishioners in a Charleston church, and the President’s speech eulogizing those victims. Keenan, then Chief Speechwriter for the President, brings us right into the Oval Office as he works with Obama to craft speeches. In addition to the extraordinary effort to get each speech as close to perfect as possible, we get to see the process and the relationship as the two work together.

This book is exceptional in that the reader experiences those ten days as Keenan did: the procrastination, the fear of failing the President, the people, and himself, the intensity of completing entirely different versions of a speech because you can’t be sure of the outcome of certain events, having to do rewrite after rewrite because of fact-checkers, colleagues, and of course, the President. I confess that I felt a longing for that time. Back then, I saw the events of the day as future history telling the story of how we worked together to improve our lives and perfect our Union.

I highly recommend this book. It is a quick and vivid read about people who cared. It is perfect for political wonks, people who love writing and those that do write. Mostly, it is for all of us that still believe that our country can change for the better. Thanks so much to NetGalley and
Mariner Books for the opportunity to read a digital ARC. It was a pleasure.

Find yourself longing for the Obama years? Or just sanity, kindness, and hope in general? Then this book is for you. Cody Keenan is a down-to-earth hero. He never overplays his role in the Obama White House although clearly he played a major role in the administration. His love and respect for his wife and colleagues shines through on every page. And for wonks like me, it’s a pleasure to see how the sausage is made when it comes to speechwriting. As a bonus, the narrative structure is very well done and makes for compulsively easy reading. I’d recommend this book to political junkies and anyone who needs a reminder that sometimes our better angels can win out.

This book is getting a lot of buzz, and for good reason. I've been describing this book as an antidote to the insane political environment we're living in. Obviously, 2015/the Obama administration had plenty of drama, but this book is a nice little time machine back to when we were actually making some progress in society (upholding Obamacare, legalizing gay marriage) and we had a leader who knew how to meet the moment (absolutely no shade intended to my Amtrak King, Joe Biden). I also enjoyed getting to peek behind the curtain and see what the life of a speechwriter is like. As someone who has to do a lot of writing for school, it was really cool to read about his approach to writing (nerd alert!). My only quibble was that sometimes the excerpts from the speeches went on a bit too long, but I get that it's providing context for the rest of the story, so it didn't bother me too much. Overall, a great read!

Oh, how I miss President Obama!! One of my favorite qualities about President Obama is his gift of being an excellent orator. For many of his speeches, I have watched them numerous times. That said, it was amazing to peek in for an inside view of the Obama speechwriting operation. It is impressive how Cody & President Obama was so in sync with Obama's speeches. Together, they captured the essence of each pivotal moment for these three key speeches, After reading the book, I went back & replayed the video of each speech. All in all, this book was a joy to read!!!

Thank you NetGalley and Mariner Books for accepting my request to read and review Grace.

Author: Cody Keenan
Published: 10/04/22
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs - Nonfiction (Adults) - Politics

From intern to chief speechwriter for Barack Obama we get the sense and work behind the speeches the president gives. Keenan also explains the reason and the process of fact checking. In addition, he touches on why speechwriters are used.

As a writer, he had to move quickly and several of the ten days he covers are mass shootings. No two speeches can be the same, and they have to be sincere. I was intrigued by the process and how important President Obama took each word. It was impressive.

As Keenan reiterates conversations I could hear Obama's voice. I particularly enjoyed hearing about riding in Air Force One, and the facts on the Presidential motorcade, and the discipline of Obama's diet and alcohol intake.

I thoroughly enjoyed the snippets of stories, on monumental days, I remember living. Hearing President Obama's chats as relayed through Keenan were insightful.

There is profanity.

I would gift this to a student, there is a lot to learn here. It's cleverly written, sincere and heart warming. It's a fast read for smart people.

I've read the Clinton biographies, I've read the Obama biographies (in both cases, both husband and wife), and The West Wing is easily one of my favorite television shows. While I'm more of a poet and literary prose reader, I am still one of the ideal readers of this book--already a built-in fan of Obama's decisions (not all, but so many) and especially admiring of this moment in our own country's history.

Keenan is a speechwriter, and that shows. He isn't interested in the work of language in the same ways as me, but that doesn't mean he isn't capable of strong and direct words that take on the difficulty of witnessing and playing a very specific role as history moves at the sometimes too-slow and too-heartbreaking pace.

I enjoyed learning about the writing process of these speeches. Sometimes I'm lucky enough to teach a Speech class, and I feel as if talking about this lengthy, symbiotic process would be really compelling for them.

And I admit: I cried when I read the last sentence. I didn't expect it, and it could have been done in such a hokey way, but Keenan earns it, and I'm just so grateful that people like Obama and Keenan and so many others who are mentioned in the book are in this world, fighting the good fight.

Cody Keenan's Twitter thread on the 10 days covered in this book has been one of my favorite tweet threads ever so I was very excited for this book to hear his account of these days in greater detail. I also have also read and listened to other accounts of Obama staffers about their time in the administration. That being said, this book definitely delivered on providing further detail on 10 pivotal days in the Obama administration from the perspective of his chief speechwriter at the time and offered unique perspectives on the administration. It may seem like focusing on just 10 days of the administration would not provide enough content for a book, but Keenan intersperses some other anecdotes and details about the innerworkings of administration throughout and their is really a lot of depth into what went into planning the vitally important speeches for these monumental days. It's still hard to believe that so much happened in such a short period of time and I don't know how Keenan and the other staffers made it through all the work that was required. Still, there were times where parts of the narrative felt slightly like filler, which is why I can't give this a full five stars. However, overall I think this is a compelling book that adds its own unique pieces to the Obama presidency canon and definitely gives a strong idea of what it is like to be a speechwriter for the most powerful person in the world.

There have been a plethora of memoirs that have come out from staffers from the Obama presidency. I have read several of them (and enjoyed), but was a bit burned out on them. Cody Keenan takes a different angle than many of the memoirs by focusing his book Grace on a ten-day period of time in the Obama presidency, centering around what is one, if not his most memorable speeches in his presidency- the eulogy at Reverend Clementa Pinckney's funeral in Charleston after the horrid shooting at the church. Keenan begins in the prologue by highlighting the speechwriting process on another memorable speech (Obama's speech at the 50th anniversary of Selma). Within the book he charts on day one when the news of the Charleston shooting broke through the day of the speech. The reader is able to understand the multiple pressures a speechwriting team is under and the development of a speech over time. Obama is a fantastic writer, but even when he heavily edits a draft of a speech, themes that Keenan has developed are still there. It was enlightening to see the amount of collaboration. Keenan is having to balance Obama's resistance of doing another speech post-gun violence, the racial component to the crime, and the country's lack of progress on meaningful gun reform. What provides the driving theme of the speech is when the families of the victims voice words of grace towards the shooter, a concept difficult to imagine given the circumstances. Overlapping this timespan is the big Supreme Court decisions of the term- up that week are the second challenge to the ACA and the Obergefell (same sex marriage) decision. The speechwriting team have to draft speeches linked to multiple potential outcomes of those decisions. I had forgotten that the same sex marriage decision came down the same day as the Charleston speech. Talk about a wallop of an emotional day. I really appreciated the focused look at the Obama presidency- using a short time span to highlight larger goals, successes, and failures of the administration. In the pile of memoirs from this period, Keenan's stands out. And I will just say the final sentence of the epilogue (no spoilers) hit me with an unexpected emotional wallop.

Thank you to Mariner Books via NetGalley for the advance reader copy in exchange for honest review.

I absolutely loved this book! This might be enough of a review, but it doesn't go far enough.

It's not some dry, how-I-do-my-job book. It's an inside look at how Mr. Keenan did his job, and how it was never as easy as people might think.

President Obama has been known as an orator extraordinaire, and this book gives us an idea of how his speeches came together during his presidency. It was always Cody Keenan and Barack Obama working together to write the speeches that Pres. Obama presented to the world.

Of particular interest were two speeches: when same-sex marriage became the law of the land, and the eulogy at the funeral of Rev. Clementa Pinckney, a shooting victim at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC. Up until the literal last moment that day, the eulogy was being written, edited and improved upon by both Keenan and Obama. Coincidentally, both speeches were given on the same day!

But the other stories involved the people in Cody Keenan's life, his co-workers, other politicians and ultimately, his girlfriend/fiancee/wife, Kristen Bartoloni. Bartoloni worked in the White House as a fact-checker for Keenan's speeches.

Don't cheat and skip to the end, though. It's the best part of the book and it gave me chills. This book is highly recommended.

I was given an ARC of this book by Netgalley. Much appreciated.

I am obsessed with Obama and when I saw this title I knew I had to read it. Cody Keenan was a speech writer for Obama. Even as I type that - I am thinking how all of his speeches are so spellbinding - how they speak to our hearts - so it is interesting to read how those speeches come together. This book , Grace, is about 10 very important days of the Obama presidency - a white supremacist shooting, the fate of marriage equality and the Affordable Care Act - and a truly behind the scenes look of what it was llike to be there. A must read for all political enthusiasts.

Well, this made me cry multiple times. Grace follows a very interesting and emotional 10 day span during Obama’s presidency through the eyes of his chief speechwriter Cody Keenan. The time that this book focuses on was the period in June 2015 between the horrific mass shooting at a church in Charleston, South Carolina where 9 Black people were killed and the funeral for Clementa Pinckney where Obama delivered the eulogy and sang Amazing Grace. But in that same time period the future of the Affordable Care Act and same-sex marriage were due to be decided by the Supreme Court. Keenan, along with a team of other speechwriters, had to plan multiple speeches for massive events, preparing for any possible outcomes.

I think this book does a great job of showing the behind the scenes of the day to day activities of a presidential speechwriter. But it also excellently shows the emotional toll of having to write speeches for numerous mass shootings and funerals over the years. There’s a sense of having nothing left to say, but then still coming up with an amazing speech nonetheless. Seeing the way that Obama would work with the speechwriters and edit what they had written was really interesting.

The way that Keenan wrote this book almost made it feel like a novel at times, it’s really easy to picture the different scenarios and get caught up in the narrative. Pulling all nighters, only having the title staring back at you from the top of a blank page, sadness and anger, celebratory joy, the White House lit up in rainbow lights. This book has so many moving and relatable moments.

I flew through this in less than a day. Definitely check it out if the subject sounds interesting to you!

I was very excited to read this book by Cody Keenan, Obama's chief speechwriter, because I went to school with one of his staff members, and I always remember being intrigued by the process and collaboration that went into Obama's speeches.

This book focuses on a ten day period that was full of key events and Supreme Court decisions, and it explores how each word that Obama spoke to the nation was thought through, and presented. The events that impacted this time included a white supremacist shooting in Charleston, the Supreme Court decisions about the ACA and marriage equality, and the act of Confederate flags being removed from government buildings in the south. Each of these events was emotionally charged and the words that Obama used to address the nation carried a lot of weight and needed to be very carefully thought out.

I really enjoyed reading in more detail about how these speeches came together - the teamwork, the fact-checking, the underlying tones, and the collaboration with Obama himself. The power of the words we say was not missed by this group of people and it was fantastic to read more about this.

This book may be for some, but it wasn't as interesting to me. I wish there were 1/2 star rating options, as you either have to go down or up a star, depending on the review.

Through many dangers, toils and snares
We have already come
T'was Grace that brought us safe thus far
And Grace will lead us home

This book encompasses these lyrics beautifully. I feel like our country needs this reminder of how far we did come and how it all unraveled...but how we must keep working for change. I loved this book. I have to admit that I am a big West Wing junkie and this book gave all the inside workings of speech writing in the White House, but was very smart to focus on one big speech and create the threads of the book around that speech and that defining week in the administration, and reliving other big moments in the 8 year Obama Administration in the context of the speech. It usually takes me a while to work through nonfiction, but I completed this book in record time for me...it was gripping and so very poignant. Thank you, Mr. Keenan and thank you, President Obama for your service to this country and your heart for its people! 5 enthusiastic stars.

An interesting insider's view of the WH and events. Cody of course writes well and this is fun. Recommended.

Thanks very much for the free ARC for review!