When I first saw images of Hillary Clinton’s new(est) memoir, What Happened, floating around on twitter, I thought they were fake.

Between the galley-proof style presentation (easily faked), the simple cover, and the bold, obvious statement-style title, I assumed it was one big fat joke put together by some Trump supporter as an answer to the RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA thing.

The whole setup (including the “look at me I’m working so hard with my pleb-tier Staples notebook and everything” photo aesthetic) reads as a meme to me.

Alas, that was not the case.

This is a real book, printed on real paper and read by real people (not just Russian bots, lol).

Visually, I can’t decide if I like the cover or not. It’s refreshing to see a political book that doesn’t follow the basic formula of pundit’s face + terrible typography. (Yes, this even goes for Ann Coulter’s books.)

Normally, a blue/yellow color palette would make me twitch, but this one contains such a lovely creamy shade of blue and enough white that the execution is spot-on.

The typography is bold and commands attention, but has just enough variation in the H that it doesn’t look too commanding (which would be extra-disingenuous, because she lost — not commanding anything). The extended cross-bar of the H is a nice callback to Hillary’s campaign logo, which extended the H into a forward arrow. This version is going backwards.

I don’t like the attempt to paint the book as an authoritative-yet-unbiased antrhopological exploration of the election by the use of the National Geographic visual trop of a yellow border. This is clearly a biased book (and I don’t fault it for being so — it’s her “side” of the story) but to suggest, even visually, that it’s not is verging into the territory of lies.

I’m also still on the fence about the title itself. On the one hand, it’s the bold statement of a seasoned political candidate. On the other hand, read it in a querulous tone of voice and it’s the plaintive question of an old lady with neurological problems.

Which, when you think about it, is pretty indicative of the state of Hillary Clinton over the past year.

OK, the title can stay.