Thank you to the publisher and for NetGalley, which provided Mr. Book with a free copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.
Everyone who has been to law school is familiar with the most famous footnote in US history—footnote 4 of the Caroline Products case. Nobody really knows, or cares, about what that case was about. But, we all know about footnote 4, since it eventually became the basis for modern day Equal Protection Clause law.
So, when Mr. Book saw there was a book about Supreme Court footnotes, as a former attorney, I got curious about it. Mr. Book knows the story about footnote 4, but this got him wondering whether there were other footnotes in Supreme Court history that might have an interesting story attached to them. So, he decided to take a chance reading this book and is glad he did.
The book was divided into eight chapters, each of which covered a different Supreme Court case. Mr. Book could have done without the chapter on Viterbo v. Friedlander, but that was more likely his disinterest in legal issues of that case than any fault of the author.
Mr. Book found the beginning of the book to be inconsistent. The first few half of the book of the book sometimes made me wonder whether the author just wanted to write a book on selected Supreme Court cases. The discussion of those cases were more interesting than the discussion of the footnotes. But, Mr. Book was not that disappointed, since he was still enjoying the discussion of the cases (Viterbo notwithstanding). But, the book really took off once the author reached Brown v. Board of Education. That, along with the chapters on the infamous Heller and Dobbs cases were his favorite parts of the book.
Mr. Book likes to grade on a letter scale and this book earned an A. He thought it was headed for B at the halfway point, but the second half of the book would have gotten an A+, if judged alone, and his overall enjoyment level meant it earned its promotion up to an A. Mr. Book gives books that get an A or A+ 5 stars on Goodreads and NetGalley.
Mr. Book originally read this on May 13, 2024.
