Mémoires Vives

Most of this book is a lead-up to the whistleblowing, so while it helps to establish his motivation, at least by his account, this memoir suffers from the usual autobiographical inclination to recount the childhood and angsty teenage years, which is never that interesting from a first-person point of view, although I can always relate to early bonding with computers and nostalgia over the pre social-media years. I can also relate a bit to his description of what working in these government agencies is like (I was also a government contractor, even for a summer student job at NASA because the paperwork is easier that way, and had a security clearance and worked on defense projects, and dealt with creepy security people and ridiculous bureaucracy...). How he acquired and secreted the information and tried to securely contact journalists is interesting, too, in a Mission Impossible way, although there are some tools now, like Signal, in part created as a reaction to his expose, that should make that kind of thing easier now. I've seen accusations that Assange maneuvered him into getting stuck in Russia, but Snowden seems to reject that, without explicitly mentioning that issue, instead saying despite his reputation for self-interest and bullying tactics (no mention of the rape allegations, unless those are weak euphemisms) which is why they stopped communicating soon after Snowden's escape, Assange was sincerely trying to help and motivated out of idealism. So I guess they weren't buds, although Snowden gives plenty of credit to others who harbored and helped him. The most sympathetic figure is his wife, the diary excerpts of what she went through emotionally is the most compelling part of the book. Overall, this book is worth reading because, that happened.