I pre-ordered this book because Trump was mad about it. That’s the type of person that I am. I was excited to read a whole 300 pages that exist in the world solely to cause Trump distress. I can be petty.
This book was so disappointing.
Did you know Trump has the attention span and leadership skills of a four year old? Cool, me too. Do you want to hear that repeated for 300 pages with no in depth discussion about anything else? Yeah, me neither. I finished this book so you don’t have to.
The excerpts that were released beforehand are the best parts. If you read that and have a basic awareness of the last year, you have read this book.
My problems with it:
– The book was clearly rushed to publication without proper editing.
There’s a part in the earlier chapters talking about how Trump couldn’t possibly have colluded with Russia (because he’s too dumb) and that any ties were probably loose, shady business ones. We ‘find out’ later that yes, there were meetings with Russia. Everyone who has been conscious for any part of the last year knows this, so the earlier bit reads REALLY WEIRD. It’s not written well enough to come off as a linear telling of the story with a big Russia reveal.
The tone of the narration is all over the place. Some of it is from a passive observer, most of it is clearly loosely transcribed Steve Bannon. There was so much more of Steve Bannon’s voice and opinion than I have ever wanted.
– There’s nothing new in it.
I have not been following politics as much as I should be. I get my headlines on twitter, and then I get half of a sentence from Jake Tapper once a week before I put my headphones on to drown out the constant despair spiral.
I have apparently been keeping up with the minutia of the government. I learned nothing about the administration. I learned nothing about any of the constant big crises. I wasn’t even aware that I knew what everyone’s jobs were, but it turns out that I know better than the administration. Surprise.
– I don’t want to hear about how rational Ivanka and Jared are.
Complicit.
– It paints Trump as a harmless idiot.
Most of the book talks about how lol dumb Trump is with no discussion of the repercussions. People are being deported. People are losing their jobs. People are having their rights taken away. The Constitution is being shredded. We might find out if you can cause a nuclear winter on Twitter. THERE ARE ACTUAL NAZIS OPENLY ROAMING THE COUNTRY. But really, the book insists, Trump isn’t threatening and no one in the government knows what they’re doing, so no cause for concern.
It’s so bad I’m going to go full conspiracy on you and say that Trump’s puppet masters read this, saw how weak of a criticism it actually was, and decided to draw a lot of attention to it so that we thought these were our actual problems.
It was so mediocre.
I’m not going to tell you to not read it, because I refuse to have a common opinion with white supremacists, but it was a struggle to get through.
Grumpy Skin 