Revenge is essentially a follow-up to Cohen's first book, Disloyal. It expands somewhat on events he discussed in the prior book about why he ended up taking the plea deal, his testimony before Congress, and what happened to him after he was sent to prison.
In his first book, Cohen gave up a lot of juicy tidbits about t***p and the inner workings of the t***p organization. There is a little bit of that in here (like reiterating that t***p hated Obama, but he hated him before the roasting Obama (and Seth Meyers) gave him at the White House Correspondent's dinner, mainly because he was jealous of Obama, but not as much of that as there was in the first book. This was likely due to the fact that Cohen was persona non-grata by the time he wrote this one. One interesting topic that he does get into, and even vindicates t***p a bit relates to the "Steele Dossier". Cohen asserts that almost everything, including the existence of the pee tape, in the Dossier was bullshit, and that everything Steele detailed about Cohen, which was really what the department of justice used to come after him in order to garner his help to take down t***p, was not true. Cohen excoriates the DOJ, many times naming names, by basically saying that they thought he knew more about what t***p was up to than he actually did, and when that became clear they charged him with bullshit charges and threatened to charge his wife for the tax crimes he was being charged with, which led Cohen to take the plea deal. And once he agreed to rat t***p out, t***p was more than happy to let the DOJ throw him in a hole.
While in his previous book, Cohen went out of his way to say he did not hate t***p, that is totally out the window in this book. Early on he calls t***p a huge piece of shit and basically alleges that t***p ordered him sent back to prison after he was released early due to the Covid pandemic. Cohen does not spend the whole book bitching about his treatment but more exposing how the DOJ treats people that it is out to get and that if he, a rich, privileged white male, can get treated the way he did, anyone can. He also takes a victory lap when it comes to Michael Avenatti, whom he also calls a huge piece of shit, and relishes in Avenatti's downfall given all the crap Avenatti said about him on TV while pulling shit that would land Avenatti in prison.
Overall, this book is a good follow-up to the first book. Cohen has to walk a fine line, admitting his faults and the fact that he was not a good guy, but trying to convince readers that he did not deserve what happened to him. And, of all of the "bad guys" that are trying to distance themselves from t***p, Cohen seems to be sincere in his mea-culpa and is genuinely trying to become a better person. He explains why, after getting jerked around at nearly all levels why he still cooperated and said he will continue to cooperate with any investigations of t***p. While I do not think this is necessarily a must-read, I think it is worth reading.
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