Thank you, Disruption Books, for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Mr. Book just finished Democracy Without Violence by Robbie Robinette.

The author has plenty of criticisms of the American political system, but very little to offer in the way of meaningful solutions. His arguments are occasionally understandable, but too often, he makes them far more convoluted and complicated than necessary. He devotes considerable effort to dissecting the shortcomings of various approaches to democracy, yet when it comes time to propose alternatives, that attention to detail largely disappears.

He rejects the Condorcet system and ranked-choice voting while giving proportional representation relatively little consideration. Yet after dismissing these potential reforms, he offers no concrete proposals of his own. Instead, his recommendations consist largely of platitudes about the ideals a better democratic system should embody, with almost no discussion of how such a system would actually work.

The result is a book that is long on criticism and short on substance. Identifying problems with democracy is one thing. Explaining how to address them is another. Robinette devotes far too much effort to the former and nowhere near enough to the latter.

I had chosen this one to be read on Election Day, thinking it was a good day for that subject matter. Unfortunately, I got an extremely disappointing start to my day. On the bright side, once the results started to come in, I realized that the book hadn’t succeeded in ruining my day.

Mr. Book gave this book a D. Goodreads requires grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, a D equates to 1 star. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star).

This review is being posted on Mr. Book’s Book Reviews, Goodreads and NetGalley.

Mr. Book read this on November 3, 2026.

The book will be published on February 23, 2027.