Kyle Rittenhouse released a new book called “Acquitted” on Amazon Kindle, but despite having a radicalized alt-right fan base, the book is not performing well in the market.
Rittenhouse, still not even old enough to buy alcohol, launched the project on the second anniversary of his acquittal on all charges related to the killing of Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, in August 2020. The two men were protesting the police shooting of Jacob Blake by a Kenosha, Wisconsin, police officer when he fatally shot them with a semi-automatic AR-15-style assault rifle. Also wounded by Rittenhouse that night was Gaige Grosskreutz, 26.
The book details, from his perspective, his fears on that night as a 17-year-old, maintaining he acted in self-defense, his arrest, prison, the media, and the trial, where he was acquitted on Nov. 19, 2021.
“I never wanted to be a public figure. I was homeless as a small child and raised in government-subsidized housing. My goal was to be a cop or a paramedic,” Rittenhouse says in a blurb on the online retailer’s platform.
“I went to Kenosha to help my community—not become a whipping boy in the national debate. In less than three minutes, the direction of my life was horribly altered when I was forced to defend myself with deadly force. So much was said and written about me that was not true.”
The 20-year-old contends that the book is his voice for the “first time,” telling his story, claiming, “I was attacked. I defended myself. I was prosecuted. I was acquitted.”
Despite having over a million followers on the X platform, 266,000 followers on Instagram, and being a Fox News and MAGA darling, his digital book is not selling.
As of Tuesday, Dec. 5, the book is ranked at No. 9,569 in the Kindle Store sector on Amazon and No. 510 in nonfiction in the Kindle Store.
The book has over 43 reviews and sits at 3.6 stars on the platform’s user-generated rating system.
Fifty-six percent of the readers gave the work five stars. However, 33 percent of readers gave it one star.
“In a world where values are turned upside-down, a world where children can be exploited or abused for power or profit, a world where politics can easily trump justice, a world where factions at opposite extremes create myths to fit their agendas, the voice of a child is heard telling the truth behind a tragic path to manhood and connectedness with God. Acquitted: The story of the myth, the boy, the man – Kyle Rittenhouse,” one review read.
Another review accused Rittenhouse of “self-victimizing.”
“The book just comes off as a self-victimizing rant, blaming everyone else for his problems but himself…even shaming his parents. What I found most telling of the book is his glaring omission of the fact that there was no reason for him to go to the protest: He’s not a security professional, nor medical professional, never even was a boy scout,” it read.
The review continued, “But he went, easily out arming every other citizen at the protest. Had he stayed home, those people would still be alive. He now seeks shelter behind far right ideology and the hijacking of the 2nd amendment….And now he’s been reduced to a poorly written, half-truth autobiography in a desperate attempt to make a buck.”
Still, some people see this book as “very touching” and a “tremendous” work.
Rittenhouse has a current estimated net worth of $55,000. This is substantially less than the money he received through crowdfunding donations that totaled $200,000. His final payout, through the site GiveSendGo, was $300,000 less than its goal.
