Jacinda Ardern’s A Different Kind of Power memoir: What the critics are saying about it

Dame Jacinda Ardern’s “deeply personal memoir”, A Different Kind of Power, has some reviewers disappointed with a lack of political revelations but consumed by its introspective and humorous story-telling.

The book – released today - covers her tenure as prime minister, including her Mormon upbringing, rise to power as the world's youngest female head of government in 2017, her fertility treatment and pregnancy, a cancer scare, and navigating crises like the Christchurch mosque terror attacks, Whakaari White Island eruption and the Covid-19 pandemic.

The 44-year-old is giving an extended interview about her memoir with RNZ Afternoons host Jesse Mulligan, which will be broadcast on Tuesday afternoon and be available to view on RNZ’s website.

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The Post and Sunday Star-Times editor Tracy Watkins writes the book deals with the big moments but offers no new insight on how she now feels about the decisions she made.

“Ardern’s trademark self-deprecating humour is weaved throughout the book, and we learn more about some of her emotional highs and lows. We also gain some fresh insight into her own personal mechanisms for coping with such momentous events as the terror attack, and Covid.

“But we don’t learn a lot more about what was going on behind closed doors within her government, which must, at times, have been under enormous strain.”

Writing for the New Zealand Listener, Henry Cooke agrees – while often funny, “compulsively readable” and intimate – it does little to explain the policy decisions of her government or self-reflect on whether she made the right calls outside of the crises she faced.

“There are some hints, near the end of the book, that perhaps she isn’t so certain quitting was the right idea. But there is little reckoning with the facts on the ground as they are – that much (but not all) of her political project was immediately repealed when Labour left office. There is little attempt to engage with the arguments against the latter half of the Covid period, when MIQ’s usefulness looked shaky and vaccine mandates radicalised thousands of people.”

Published by Penguin Random House New Zealand, “the 337 breezy pages” have been written for international fans who have come to know her through her compassionate responses to big events, not for domestic readers, Cooke observed.

“It is unlikely to win over any confirmed Ardern-hater, and moments will seem cloying to almost everyone with a pulse.”

The Age columnist Jenna Price writes Ardern’s hopes, feelings and relationships dominate the memoir as much as her lead-up to becoming prime minister.

“To be honest, I really looked forward to reading Ardern’s memoir – until I got to her dedication: to the criers, worriers and huggers. Dear God, I thought, I’m going to be inundated with all the feels and none of the facts. By the time I got to the end, I was so engrossed by all those feelings, the commitment to empathy, to listening, to kindness, that none of the rest of it mattered.”

Price was surprised that while the book touched on the emotional impact of navigating the country through turmoil, it did not go into detail about the “relentless hatred” she faced.

“I’m surprised at how well written it is, how it balances humour and pathos, kindness and hardiness – and I can’t find a hint of a ghostwriter, although many thanks to editors. But after reading this, I’m not surprised she gave up after six years. Too hard for anyone really human.”

Newsroom literary editor Steve Braunias agrees with Cooke that the book was written with the American market in mind – but also for women.

He describes it as “a radical departure from the junk of recent New Zealand political memoirs”, adding that many would perceive it as “a panacea in America’s dark second age of Trump, and our own gormless time of Luxon”.

“Her messages on how we ought to conduct our lives in good conscience and with empathy are well-meaning, sincere, decent, boring, platitudinous, worthless, floating above the page like ice-cream castles in the air…

“It’s a very Jacinda Ardern book, as in true to her idea of herself. It works. This is going to sell by the shipload and it may even help to make the world a better place. Everyone jump up on the peace train.”

The Washington Post associate editor Frances Sellers writes the book is “part political, part domestic memoir” and will resonate well with any working mother.

The earnestness of Ardern's input of some mundane details, including descriptions of her childhood, are compensated with anecdotes of humourous moments, such as Clarke Gayford's proposal, Sellers writes.