RISE

LIFE LESSONS IN SPEAKING OUT, STANDING TALL AND LEADING THE WAY

GINA MILLER Canongate, 206pp, £16.99, Oldie price £13.25 inc p&p

In 2016 Gina Miller took the government to court over Brexit and succeeded in her bid to maintain the principle that Parliament is sovereign. A heroine to some, she is also the enemy of many, and now finds herself dealing with racist abuse and death threats. This memoir tells a tale of courage (leaving her home in Guyana at age 11, bullying at school) and over-coming adversity (domestic violence, sexual abuse, being a single mother). She learns to speak out and eventually to speak up for democracy. Her example shows that one person can make a difference.

For Alan Rusbridger, writing in the Guardian, this is a story of ‘optimism and courage, which should inspire… and also shame those who preach freedom but showed intolerance.’ But Caroline O’donoghue found the tone of the book undermined its message. Writing in the Irish Times, she found that ‘Miller has the memoirist’s habit of including just a few too many stories where she is the hero.’ Too often the author ‘always acts nobly’. Yet, while the prose can sometimes be ‘clunky and mechanical… the book is at its best the more furious Miller allows herself to become’. Andrew Anthony, writing in the

Observer, also had doubts. Her book ‘sings a familiar song of triumph over adversity, but has too many missing notes to be convincing’.