Both/And by Huma Abedin review – an innocent at the heart of power

Hillary Clinton's right-hand woman details the shock and humiliation of the scandal that sank her marriage, and a presidential campaign

Huma Abedin hadn't been working in the White House long when the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke. Although she would eventually become like a second daughter to Hillary and Bill Clinton - most visibly as the former's right-hand woman during the 2016 presidential election campaign - she was then just a distant junior aide to the first lady. Perhaps that explains why, as she writes in her new memoir, she initially assumed the rumours couldn't possibly be true. Everyone in politics was young and starry-eyed once.

Unusually, however, Abedin seems to have stayed that way. Even when the president actually confesses to the affair she was sure hadn't happened, she resolves sternly to put my judgments and emotions aside" and focus on the bigger picture. Hadn't she been taught as a child that slander, gossip and exploiting people's personal weaknesses are among the worst forms of conduct for any Muslim"?