Sonia Sotomayor

August 23, 2010
Because Sotomayor's mother was raised in Puerto Rico in "a context of poverty" unseen in the United States, she worked hard to instill in her daughter, Sonia, the believe that "education was the key to everything." Even so, when Sotomayor arrived at Princeton and realized the gap between her skills and those of students from elite high schools, she spent the next summer reading classics and reviewing grammar books. Felix, who has written biographies of Laura Bush and Condoleeza Rice, provides anecdotes to illustrate Sotomayor's pluck and perseverance. During a recruiting dinner with a large law firm, for instance, Sotomayor accused the interviewer of asking discriminatory questions, filed a complaint against the firm, and petitioned Yale to drop their recruiting privileges. Sotomayor's impressive resume includes jobs with the Manhattan DA's office (the first time she "had given any thought to public service other than the State Department"), Pavia & Harcourt, where she worked on the "Fendi contra counterfeiting program," and the distinction of becoming the first Hispanic judge on a federal bench in New York. Readers looking for a riveting and meticulously researched book on the Supreme Court Justice will be engrossed.

August 1, 2010

In this pleasant biography, Felix (Condi: The Condoleezza Rice Story) recounts Sotomayor's remarkable life so far. A daughter of Puerto Rican immigrants, Sotomayor was raised in public housing in New York and gained admission to Princeton and then Yale Law School, successfully combating discrimination within these two elite institutions. After a tour as an assistant district attorney (ADA) under Robert Morgenthau and eight years in a private law firm, she was appointed by President George H.W. Bush to a federal district court in 1992, inaugurating her judicial career, with President Clinton elevating her to the federal appeals court in New York. Last year, America's first black President named Sotomayor the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice and only its third woman. VERDICT Felix offers substantial detail about some of Sotomayor's cases as an ADA and as a judge along with perhaps more background on her personal life than has been aired, but by and large there's little new in this telling. The legal detail makes it unsuitable for most readers below college age. Recommended for large public libraries and all college and university collections.--Cynthia Harrison, George Washington Univ., Washington, DC

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2010
Sotomayor is a history-maker by virtue of her ethnic background and gender: the first Hispanic and only the third woman to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. Best-selling biographer Felixs biography of Associate Justice Sotomayor is journalistic in tone and treatment, but it is good, responsible, nonsensational journalism, proving to be necessary reading for anyone interested in gathering a solid, accurate picture of this remarkable woman. Bronx-born and -raised, she benefited from her mothers emphasis on the importance of education. (Sonia has been unstinting in her praise of her mother as the locus of her success in school and after.) Her undergraduate years at Princeton informed the rest of her life; law school at Yale gave her a professional focus. Five years in the district attorneys office in New York City did nothing less than imprint her with the legal skills and approach to the law that would define the rest of her career. Later, she transitioned from corporate lawyering to the federal bench, and the rest is historythough a history yet to be concluded.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)