Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs

This is a really scary book by Kerry Howley that tells the true and unsettling story of Reality Winner, a young American woman, who works for the US government. After she leaked a document containing proof of Russian interference in the first Trump election, she became the whistleblower who received the harshest punishment in U.S. history. The book goes beyond the events to explore how her decision affected her family’s life, the government’s tough response, and the challenges of speaking out in today’s world.

Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs raises important questions: How far should someone go to reveal the truth? How fair is justice when it comes to whistleblowers? How do we treat those who risk everything to inform the public? It also talks about the increasing levels of surveillance and the massive amount of data collected about people everywhere.

Winner’s case is compared with the stories of other well-known whistleblowers like Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, and Chelsea Manning, who also exposed uncomfortable truths at great personal cost.

This book doesn’t provide easy answers, but it makes readers think about the balance between keeping secrets for national security and the public’s right to know. It is not just about Reality Winner—it’s a thought-provoking look at security, surveillance, privacy, data, and the tough choices and risks involved in exposing the truth in our modern world.

It was not an easy story to listen to, but it was definitely one of the most interesting and eye-opening books I’ve read in a long time!