Four star review, originally posted here on December 21, 2020 during a mass-review of pandemic audiobooks.
[DISCLAIMER: I’m catching up on months worth of Audiobook reviews, so writing this quickly.]
Ugh. I’ve fallen into this trap a couple times now. I’m sick of reading books about this dickwad. I’m sick of people getting sweet book deals to profit off of their proximity to him. Every now and then, a book comes along that, for whatever reason, seems different. Fear was supposed to be so amazing because it’s by Woodward and thus more likely to be insightful. But we learned nothing; it’s the same stupid crap we already knew. Etc. This book is the same. It was supposed to be SO GOOD because we learn more about this asswipe’s psyche. Multiple people I know claimed to LOVE this book and told others to read it. So, I went for it.
I honestly can’t tell what people are talking about. We already know he’s an asshole. We can fully assume he’s always been an asshole. We all know his dad was an asshole who enabled his asshole sun. There were enough revelations and stories here to fit a hefty Atlantic article, I’d say. But not a whole book.
(Mary) Trump claims she’s writing this book now not to cash in, but to help. She could not stay quiet any longer, because of covid. Yeah, I dunno. Definitely seems like cashing in to me. He’s done plenty of terrible shit before covid that should have resulting in her “finally speaking out.” There’s also pretty giant percentage of the book taken up by her whining over her grandfather’s will. Yeah, ok, it sucks that your grandfather is an asshole who only left money to his living children. Sure, you want some of his money, but… I want a pony. This is not the kind of thing that warrants a book.
All that being said, there were some interesting bits here and there. Donald gives shitty Christmas presents. Donald hired his niece to write his 3rd memoir without ever agreeing to an interview. And it was a decently entertaining and quick listen. So I still gave 2 stars.
Helga without the H 