In 2013, days after Ruth Bader Ginsburg's sharp dissent in Shelby County v. Holder, an NYU law student named Shana Knizhnik started a Tumblr calling her Notorious R.B.G., a play on the rapper Notorious B.I.G. It caught on fast, turning a sitting Supreme Court justice into a genuine pop-culture figure years before most Americans could have named a second justice on the bench. Knizhnik teamed up with MSNBC journalist Irin Carmon to expand that internet phenomenon into a full biography, published in 2015. It became a New York Times bestseller, was later tied into the 2018 documentary RBG, and currently holds 4.18 out of 5 on Goodreads from roughly 63,000 ratings. This review covers what critics actually said -- including the frequently repeated observation that this is not a neutral or critical biography, and was never trying to be one.
What Notorious RBG Actually Is
It's a hybrid biography, structured less like a conventional cradle-to-present narrative and more like a scrapbook built around Ginsburg's legal career and internet-era cultural rebirth. The book mixes reported narrative chapters covering her early life, her litigation work for the ACLU's Women's Rights Project in the 1970s, and her time on the Supreme Court, with annotated excerpts from her most famous dissents, archival photographs, fan art and internet memes drawn directly from the Notorious RBG online community, and sidebar features explaining the legal stakes of specific cases in plain language. It's designed to be readable by someone with zero legal background while still including real primary-source material -- actual dissent language, actual case citations -- for readers who want more substance than a purely pop-culture treatment would offer.
About Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik and Why They Wrote This
Knizhnik created the Notorious R.B.G. Tumblr in 2013 while a law student at NYU, where she graduated cum laude in 2015 before clerking for a federal appeals judge on the Third Circuit; she's since worked as a civil rights attorney. Carmon, a journalist who has written for MSNBC and other major outlets, brought reporting experience and direct interview access that the original Tumblr, built from publicly available material, didn't have. Together they secured something the blog alone couldn't: interviews with Ginsburg's family, close friends, former colleagues, and clerks, plus a direct interview with Ginsburg herself. That access is what let the book move beyond curating existing internet content into original reporting, even while keeping the celebratory, fan-driven tone that made the Tumblr popular in the first place.
How It Compares to Standard Supreme Court Biography
Most Supreme Court justice biographies are written by legal scholars or veteran court reporters years or decades after a justice leaves the bench, with an explicit goal of assessing judicial legacy and doctrine with some critical distance. Notorious RBG inverts that model almost entirely: it was written by a journalist and a then-law-student, published while Ginsburg was still actively sitting on the Court, and grew directly out of an admiring internet fan community rather than a detached scholarly project. That's not a criticism by itself -- it's a different genre, closer to a cultural-icon biography than a legal-legacy assessment -- but readers expecting the tone and rigor of a traditional judicial biography should recalibrate before starting.
What Critics Actually Said
Rather than inventing a verdict, here's what was actually published about it:
“The authors make this unassuming, most studious woman come pulsing to life . . . Notorious RBG may be a playful project, but it asks to be read seriously . . . That I responded so personally to it is a testimony to [its] storytelling and panache.”— Jennifer Senior, The New York Times
“After this treatment, surely, Biggie would agree that RBG truly is notorious.”— NPR
Senior's same review is also the source of the book's most quoted critical framing -- calling it "an artisanal hagiography, a frank and admiring piece of fan nonfiction," a description that's since become the standard shorthand critics use for the book, including in coverage well after its original release. That's not a contradiction within her own review; Senior was praising the storytelling while being explicit that it isn't a work of critical biography, and both halves of that assessment are accurate to what the book actually does.
And the aggregate reader picture, for what it's worth:
Where Real Reviews Pushed Back
Emily Bazelon, reviewing the book for The New York Times Book Review, made the pushback explicit rather than implied: she wrote that turning the pages felt like touring a Ruth Bader Ginsburg museum with two conscientious and admiring curators, and stated directly that the book isn't a critical assessment of Ginsburg either as a 1970s litigator or as a sitting justice. That's the central, recurring critique across serious reviews of this book: it doesn't seriously engage with debate over Ginsburg's judicial philosophy, doesn't wrestle with critiques of her specific opinions or dissents from scholars who disagreed with her reasoning, and doesn't offer anything close to an opposing perspective. Some commentary from outlets with an ideological stake in the opposite direction went further, framing the book and its surrounding media coverage as an example of uncritical liberal media enthusiasm for a justice whose actual record deserved more scrutiny than celebration. Whatever you make of that framing, the underlying factual point -- that this book is a celebration, not an evaluation -- is accurate and worth knowing before you buy it expecting a warts-and-all portrait.
On Turning a Justice Into a Pop-Culture Icon
The book's most distinctive achievement, and the thing that separates it from a standard biography, is how directly it documents and participates in the process of turning a sitting Supreme Court justice into a genuine cultural phenomenon -- t-shirts, tattoos, Halloween costumes, a nickname borrowed from a rapper. The chapters tracing how the "Notorious RBG" internet meme actually formed, starting from Knizhnik's original Tumblr post reacting to the Shelby County dissent, function as a piece of internet-culture history in their own right, not just biographical color. Few biographies of any sitting official document their own subject's meme-ification this directly, largely because few subjects have had one happen to them while the book was being written.
On the Annotated Dissents and What They Add
A second distinctive feature is the inclusion of annotated excerpts from Ginsburg's most significant dissents, with plain-language sidebars explaining the legal stakes for readers without a law background. This is where the book does its most substantive work beyond biography and cultural celebration -- giving readers direct access to Ginsburg's own language and reasoning on cases like Ledbetter v. Goodyear and Shelby County v. Holder, rather than only secondhand summary. Readers with a legal background may find this material light, but for the book's core general-audience readership, it's a genuine value-add that distinguishes it from a purely narrative biography.
Key Takeaways
- The book grew directly out of a real, documented internet phenomenon -- Shana Knizhnik's 2013 Notorious R.B.G. Tumblr -- not a marketing invention
- Multiple named critics, including Jennifer Senior and Emily Bazelon in The New York Times, were explicit that this is an admiring portrait, not a critical judicial assessment
- The authors had direct interview access to Ginsburg herself, plus her family, friends, colleagues, and clerks -- real reporting, not just curated internet content
- Annotated dissent excerpts give general readers real access to Ginsburg's own legal reasoning, not just secondhand summary
- The book was tied into and boosted by the 2018 documentary RBG, extending its reach well past its original 2015 release
Who This Book Is Actually For
Readers who want an accessible, image-rich, celebratory introduction to Ginsburg's life and legal career, especially anyone who came to know her through internet culture and wants the fuller story behind the meme. It also suits readers who want direct exposure to her actual dissents in plain language without needing a law degree to follow along.
Who Should Read Something Else Instead
If you want a rigorous, critical assessment of Ginsburg's judicial philosophy and legacy -- including where legal scholars disagreed with her reasoning -- this isn't that book, and multiple named critics said so directly. Readers looking for that kind of analysis should seek out a scholarly legal biography written with more distance from its subject, ideally published after a fuller judicial record was available to assess.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Genuine New York Times bestseller with real access to Ginsburg herself and her inner circle
- Strong 4.18 out of 5 Goodreads rating across roughly 63,000 ratings
- Positively reviewed in The New York Times for its storytelling and accessibility
- Annotated dissent excerpts genuinely add substance beyond narrative biography
- Documents a real, verifiable cultural phenomenon rather than manufacturing one
Cons:
- Explicitly not a critical assessment, per both Jennifer Senior and Emily Bazelon in The New York Times
- Doesn't engage seriously with scholarly disagreement over Ginsburg's specific rulings and reasoning
- Its unabashedly admiring tone may frustrate readers looking for a more balanced or arm's-length portrait
Frequently Asked Questions
Did the Notorious RBG Tumblr really come first, before the book?
Yes. Shana Knizhnik created the Notorious R.B.G. Tumblr in 2013 while a student at NYU School of Law, shortly after Ginsburg's dissent in Shelby County v. Holder, and it's what turned Ginsburg into a recognizable pop-culture figure before the book existed.
What's the actual Goodreads rating?
4.18 out of 5 from roughly 63,000 ratings as of this writing, a strong number for a biography of a sitting Supreme Court justice. Check the live number yourself, since it will keep moving.
Is this a balanced, critical biography of Ginsburg?
No, and reviewers said so directly. Jennifer Senior in The New York Times called it “an artisanal hagiography, a frank and admiring piece of fan nonfiction,” and Emily Bazelon's New York Times Book Review notice made a similar point -- it's an admiring portrait built to celebrate Ginsburg, not a critical assessment of her full judicial record.
Did Ginsburg herself participate in the book?
Yes, the authors had direct access to Ginsburg's family, friends, colleagues, and clerks, plus an interview with Ginsburg herself, which is part of why the book reads as intimate and celebratory rather than at arm's length.
Sources & Further Reading
- Goodreads — Notorious RBG (aggregate rating, reader reviews)
- The New York Times — Jennifer Senior review
- The New York Times Book Review — Emily Bazelon review
- NPR — Notorious RBG review
- NYU School of Law — feature on Shana Knizhnik and the Notorious RBG Tumblr
- PositiveLifes.com — free inspirational and life-changing PDF books
Final Verdict
Notorious RBG succeeds exactly at what it set out to do: take a genuine internet phenomenon and turn it into an accessible, image-rich, well-reported celebration of Ginsburg's life and legal career, backed by real access to its subject and a strong New York Times notice for its storytelling. It is not, and multiple named critics said so plainly, a critical or balanced judicial assessment -- know that going in, and it won't disappoint you on those terms. For readers who want to understand both Ginsburg's actual legal legacy and how she became an unlikely pop-culture icon along the way, it remains one of the most engaging entry points available.
Buy Day rating: 8.4/10