Confections

‘Do I really have to do this?’ is the question that Sanna Marin claims to have asked herself before becoming the youngest prime minister in Finland’s history at the age of 34. The line – which is also the title of her bloodless new memoir’s first chapter – is supposed to convey a winning reluctance and relatability, but neither is particularly convincing. In Hope in Action: A Memoir About the Courage to Lead from the Former Prime Minister of Finland, Marin portrays her rapid ascent in 2019 as near-accidental, a simple matter of rising to the occasion after a series of calamities befell more senior members of the Social Democratic Party. It’s a confected narrative, belying someone acutely aware of how power and image-making work, and who has parlayed this into a lucrative post-premiership career that includes a job at the Tony Blair Institute.