Hi everyone.
I'm Rincey and this is Rincey Reads.
Today I want to do a book review on Just Mercy
by Bryan Stevenson.
This is a non-fiction book following Bryan
Stevenson's early career as a lawyer.
He still works as a lawyer.
And he has started this organization called
the Equal Justice Initiative where he works
to try to get people off of death row who
have been wrongly convicted.
There's this one overarching story that you
are following.
It's the case of Walter McMillian who was
wrongly convicted and put on death row for
the murder of a young woman in Alabama.
And you are following Bryan Stevenson as he
investigates the case, talks to the so called
witnesses of the original case.
And he works to try to get this man off of
death row.
I really loved this book, but I kind of went
into it knowing I was going to love this book
because I love books that talk about either
the justice system or the prison system.
And Bryan Stevenson is just such a charismatic
writer.
I don't know if that makes sense, but I feel
like he really draws you into the cases that
he's talking about and the stories of the
lives that he's interacting with and experiencing
himself.
Reading books like this can be really difficult
cause, especially if you live in the United
States obviously, you are seeing very, very
clearly the problems that are happening within
our justice system and within our prison system.
You're seeing how there are these massive
cracks and holes and people are just not being
denied what should be their rights as a human
being here in the United States, whether it
be because they are a person of color, or
whether it be because they're poor, whether
it be because they don't have the education
to properly articulate themselves to authorities
or to lawyers.
You have lawyers who are working in this system
who just care only about the money or the
fame or whatever.
You have police officers who are put under
pressure to solve cases in a certain amount
of time.
And so they end up just trying to gather whatever
evidence they can to close a case as opposed
to getting the right answer.
There are all of these just different pieces
of the puzzle that all go against what you
think the justice system should be.
And it isn't necessarily the fault of like
a single person.
Like it's not just a police officer who's
doing something wrong, and it's not just like
a single judge who's doing something wrong.
It's sort of like all of these confounding
factors that just don't work and it makes
the system not work.
And Bryan Stevenson, as well as his organization,
is working really hard to try to reverse some
of that.
I think one thing that Bryan Stevenson does
in this book that's really important is he
gives faces to the names and the stories that
are happening.
A lot of times you just think about prisoners
as sort of these faceless people who don't
have any part of them that's really human.
Um.
So he humanizes them.
He provides background into their situation
and how they ended up where they are.
And he explains how the system has failed
these people, whether it be before they were
in prison or while they were in prison.
You feel frustration as a reader because you
read some of this and you're just like, how
is this possible?
In like 2000 and whatever, 15, 16, 14, whenever
these cases were happening.
How is it possible in this modern age that
it still feels like we're in like the early
1900s where people are blatantly racist and
believing that black people are just capable
of committing these crimes and so it had to
have been them who did it.
Or that they aren't worthy of a proper trial
or anything like that.
It's just so frustrating sometimes.
But Bryan Stevenson also does a really great
job of providing hope in the middle of all
this.
He talks about things like mercy and how necessary
that is, not just for prisoners but the way
that we as humans show mercy to each other.
He talks about the complexities of this system
and of this world and of the people that we
interact with.
It's not always these people are good and
these people are bad.
People make mistakes but sometimes they needed
to be forgiven of those mistakes.
Bryan Stevenson talks a lot about how, you
know, the people that he's defending, they're
not always like 100% innocent, they make mistakes.
Walter McMillian himself has talked about
having an affair with someone, and so he's
not a perfect person but he didn't, you know,
do the crime that he was convicted of.
So in the midst of all of these stories, like
this book sounds like it would be a book that
would be really heavy, but Bryan Stevenson
brings this light into these stories, talking
about how him and the other lawyers who are
working in this initiative are working to
make changes and working to make it so that
it's not as common to find innocent people
on death row.
This book is just so, so good.
I'm so glad that I read it.
Thanks to Jenny for pushing me forever to
read this book because I feel like this is
a book that everyone needs to read, especially
if you live in the United States.
I think that everyone sort of knows that the
prison system doesn't work well, but I don't
think people also realize how bad it really
can be.
So I think that this is a really great perspective
into that.
So yeah, those are just my quick thoughts
on Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson.
It's also being made into a movie with Michael
B. Jordan which I am so excited about.
I gave this book a 4 out of 5 stars.
It would probably be more like a 4.5.
I've been debating about knocking it up to
a 5 cause really, it was a great book and
I really wish there was a way for me to get
everyone to read this book.
Like this is one of those books that I think
would really change a lot of people's hearts
on the idea of the death penalty and I wish
there was more discussion around that.
Feel free to leave a comment down below if
you've read this book or if you have any questions
about the book.
So yeah, that's all I have for now and thanks
for watching.
