Go Hard or Go Home by Kiri Allan

Kiri Allan’s political career unfolded during one of the most demanding periods in Aotearoa New Zealand’s recent history. In just six years in Parliament, she was part of a government responding to a terrorist attack, a volcanic eruption, devastating weather events and a global pandemic. At the same time, Kiri’s own life was being lived in public: divorce, new motherhood, cancer treatment, mental health struggles and the car crash that led to her resignation from Parliament.

In her memoir, Kiri shares her story, beyond the news headlines. The title, Go Hard or Go Home, she says, has been her personal mantra. It’s the way she has always ambitiously lived her life.

From her childhood and student years through to law, activism and politics, she’s been driven to keep moving. But ultimately, she says the cost of going hard has been unsustainable.Kiri could have smoothed away the messiness of what happened or present herself as a victim of circumstance. Instead, she offers a candid account of a life lived at full speed and the consequences when she could no longer keep pace.

One of the most compelling aspects of the memoir is its breadth. Kiri’s public life provides a clear framework, but this is more than a political account. It is also a story about identity, whānau, visibility, pressure and survival. She reflects on leadership during a crisis, but also on the private experiences that shaped her: growing up, becoming a parent, navigating relationships, facing cancer and confronting her mental health.

If you’re interested in New Zealand politics, you’ll find much to absorb, particularly in Kiri’s reflections on what it means to govern during unprecedented national emergencies. But the book’s power lies in the way it moves beyond politics. At its heart, Go Hard or Go Home is about collapse and rebuilding, about the gap between public perception and private reality. Kiri shows what it actually takes to begin again when the life you built no longer holds. Honest and moving, this is a memoir of public life, personal reckoning and reinvention. It is a valuable read for anyone interested in the human cost of leadership and what it takes to find a way forward after very public failure.

Reviewer: Andrea Molloy

Penguin