So Hillary wrote an election postmortem and soberly titled it. If you’re on the fence about whether to pick up this book, you might be wondering a few things about it. Does she really tell all? Does she close the door on future campaigns? Does she accurately identify exactly what happened? Does she take responsibility for her flaws and failures? Here were my reactions.As in, does she finally admit that her relationship with Bill is just a front to advance their political careers, and that it was loveless and miserable behind closed doors? No. She doesn’t reveal anything scintillating or embarrassing about her relationship with her husband, or that sort of thing. Not that she should be expected to, of course.In fact, Hillary paints a positive picture of her marriage with Bill—more than I would have expected. She acknowledges that there were difficult times in their marriage, when she wasn’t sure that it would continue. But she also talks about why she stayed with Bill and why she never felt like it was the wrong decision.He always encouraged her to pursue her dreams, she says. He never held his job or his gender over her (at a time when many husbands did), would sometimes be angry but was never mean, and always saw the best in people. Hillary writes admiringly of Bill, noting that he was an excellent father and grandfather and, in spite of his personal failures, she still thinks he’s a good person.And in her lawyer-humor way, she addresses the allegations that their marriage is loveless (“he’s reading this over my shoulder in the kitchen as I’m typing”), and that they’re just in some kind of partnership to further their own goals (“It’s called marriage”).One line toward the end indicates that she has no plans to run in the future, although she was humored by the rumors of a run for mayor of New York. Nothing I read gave me the impression that she has closed off the idea of a run in 2020.She does pledge to stick around and remain committed to public service, so don’t expect her to go away any time soon.Yes, better than anyone else. Imagine a murder in which several people stabbed the victim, and none know exactly which stab was the fatal one. (My metaphor, not hers.) It’s like that.There were the headwinds, as she calls them. Opposition to third terms, desire for change, the things that any Democrat, including Bernie Sanders, would likely have faced.There was the Russian hacking, data breach, and fake news—detailed in a 50 page chapter that is at once a debriefing and a call to action to never let it happen again.There was excessive coverage of her emails, which led to false equivalencies and drowned out message on policy.There was Comey’s letter to Congress in the run up to Election Day. If there was a proximal cause of her loss, this was it—at least according to Nate Silver and numerous other analysts.There was sexism. Yes, it’s true. “Hillary Clinton: Two small breasts, two big thighs, one left wing.” You’ve seen the signs.But perhaps most astutely, there was the anger among voters. When you’re angry, you don’t always want a pragmatic problem solver, you just want someone to be angry with you, she says. Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders were angry with the voters, and she was the pragmatist who came off as unsympathetic.Finally, there were her shortcomings as a candidate. Which brings us to the last point.Yes, she does. She admits she should not have used a private email server. She also correctly notes that other state department officials did, including secretaries before her time, and that the issue was made a mountain out of a molehill.She admits to making a gaffe regarding coal companies, but notes that she worked hard to make amends while the opposition ran an extensive smear campaign.She admits the “basket of deplorables” comment alienated some voters, although given that David Duke has been tweeting “Make America Great Again”, it’s hard to really blame her for it.So yes, she discusses her faults. She also discusses what she did to overcome those faults, why it was or wasn’t effective, and what she would have done differently.There is a lot more to this book. Hillary writes clearly and matter of factly about the state we’re in, about taking on the gun lobby, about keeping streets safe for police and minorities alike, and the importance of maintaining our standing as a world leader.She also writes about being a young law student, then a mother and grandmother, then a woman in politics. (One quintessentially Hillary line says “One Harvard professor told me they had enough women. That’s part of the reason I went to Yale.”)And she finishes on a high, hopeful note, in an epilogue at a Wellesley commencement ceremony. The refrains are: Be proud of your flaws. They are what make you who you are, and they shape what you have to offer.There’s a lot to take from this book, and to anyone interested, it’s a great read.