This is not a book about how innocent people have been executed (though they most certainly have been). This is a book about how even the guilty are wrongly executed by being denied basic rights, rights that should be available to them (guilty or innocent) and that we would want available to us should it be us or our loved ones (guilty or innocent) involved in the system. It’s not the easiest thing to read…he references a lot of court cases and how they set the precedent for things which can be confusing, but it is very worth it. He illuminates how the right for effective counsel is not guaranteed, both in that sometimes counsel is not guaranteed at all, let alone effective counsel, and in other cases, “competent” merely means “alive” and “not disbarred,” as well as other loopholes that trap defendants in an irreversible cycle toward execution, even though their rights have clearly been violated in gross and horrifying ways.

It solidified my view against capital punishment and gave me mor things to think about. Innocence had previously been my only concern…now it’s the constitution as well.

I just like Phillip Gulley. I grew up in a small church and so I feel like I can connect with much of what he describes.

The subtitle of “secrets from an eavesdropping waiter” is not quite true…I really thought we were going to here crazy overheard conversations and stories from patrons. There was very little of that. I don’t know that I’d pull a copy of this off a shelf and say “you have to read this,” but I wouldn’t tear it from someone’s hand to save them from a waste of time either. It’s less than 250 pages, which is good. I don’t think it could have sustained itself much longer.

Really beautiful about time and loss and making choices…the reviews say it and it sounds fake, but the last line of the novel really does tie the whole thing up in a beautiful way.

I cried numerous times reading this amazing book. I encourage everyone to subscribe to the storycorps podcast at www.storycorps.net. This is an amazing project, interviewing ordinary people and preserving their stories for their families and for posterity. I put it by my bed and read one or two every night, and cried just about every night too. Just beautiful.

Every time I saw it, I just thought it would be so fascinating. It was, to a point, but she just had to turn it into this textbook of feminism instead of just telling her story. I got pretty annoyed with it half way through, and she said the word “dyke” a little too often for my taste (she was referring to herself, and I guess that’s her prerogative to refer to herself however she chooses, but it seemed purposely brash and inserted for the intention to thin the real women from the still encumbered women). Not terrible, just…okay.

rather, a quote from it:

“They had T-shirts with the slogan as well. NERD PRIDE on the front, and on the back, he legend: A WELL-ROUNDED PERSON IS POINTLESS.”