It's What I Do (Addario) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
[An] unflinching memoir. [Addario’s] book, woven through with images from her travels, offers insight into international events and the challenges faced by the journalists who capture them.
Washington Post


Beautifully written and vividly illustrated with her images—which are stunningly cinematic, often strange, always evocative—the book helps us understand not only what would lead a young woman to pursue such a dangerous and difficult profession, but why she is so good at it. Lens to her eye, Addario is an artist of empathy, a witness not to grand ideas about human sacrifice and suffering, but to human beings, simply being.
Boston Globe
 

[A] richly illustrated memoir. [Addario] conveys well her unstated mission to stir the emotions of people like herself, born into relative security and prosperity, nudging them out of their comfort zones with visual evidence of horrors they might do something about. It is a diary of an empathetic young woman who makes understanding the wider world around her a professional calling.
Los Angeles Times

 
Addario’s narrative about growing up as one of four daughters born to hairdressers in Los Angeles and working her way up to being one of the world’s most accomplished photojournalists, male or female, is riveting. [She] thoughtfully shows how exhilarating and demanding it is to cover the most difficult assignments in the world. Addario is a shining example of someone who has been able to "have it all," but she has worked hard and absolutely suffered to get where she is. My hope is that she continues to live the life less traveled with her family, as I will be waiting for her next book with great anticipation.
San Francisco Chronicle


[Addario’s] ability to capture…vulnerability in her subjects, often in extreme circumstances, has propelled Addario to the top of her competitive field.
Associated Press

 
A rare gift: an intimate look into the personal and professional life of a war correspondent… a powerful read… This memoir packs a punch because of Addario’s personal risks. But some of the power in this book comes from the humanity she holds on to despite the horrors she witnesses. [It’s What I Do] should be read, processed and mulled over in its entirety….in [Addario’s] words and photos, readers will see that war isn’t simply a matter of black and white, of who’s right and who’s wrong. There are as many shades of gray as there are sides to every story.
Dallas Morning News


The opening scene of Lynsey Addario’s memoir sucker punches you like a cold hard fist. She illuminates the daily frustrations of working within the confines of what the host culture expects from a member of her sex and her constant fight for respect from her male journalist peers and American soldiers. Always she leads with her chin, whether she’s on the ground in hostile territory or discussing politics.
Entertainment Weekly

 
Addario astutely addresses the difficulties of being a woman in a “brutally competitive,” overwhelmingly male profession. She also articulates the passion that compels her and others to continue this difficult and dangerous work.... Addario’s memoir brilliantly succeeds...as an illuminating homage to photojournalism’s role in documenting suffering and injustice.
Publishers Weekly


Addario [is] a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and a Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting who came to everyone's attention when she was kidnapped by pro-Qaddafi forces during Libya's civil war. Here, she details the work she's done—photographing the Afghan people before and after the Taliban ascendancy...even as she tells her personal story.
Library Journal


Addario has written a page-turner of a memoir describing her war coverage and why and how she fell into—and stayed in—such a dangerous job. This "extraordinary profession"—though exhilarating and frightening, it "feels more like a commitment, a responsibility, a calling"—is what she does, and the many photographs scattered throughout this riveting book prove that she does it magnificently.
Booklist


(Starred review.) A remarkable journalistic achievement...crystalizes the last 10 years of global war and strife while candidly portraying the intimate life of a female photojournalist. Over the last decade, Addario has been periodically beaten, robbed, kidnapped, shot at and sexually assaulted from one end of the Middle East and North Africa to the other.... [I]nspiring as it is horrific.
Kirkus Reviews