Why You Should Read Something Else

Madam President by Nicolle Wallace
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The author seems like such a nice person. Lemme just acknowledge that.

But this is such a very bad book. I can't believe how bad. (I would only give a 1-star if I found something hateful in the book. There isn't anything like that. It's just a bad book.)

And I don't want to give *all* the reasons, or explain in too much detail, but I have to give some justification. In summary: 1, there's so, so much info-dumping exposition, mostly explaining things we never need to know, sometimes for pages at a time, and it's all through the book; 2, the prose is so dull and unprofessional; and 3, literally nothing important happens in the plot.

It sounds like a thriller--multiple terrorist attacks on the same day; what will the president do?

But it's not a thriller, because the answer is that she works really, really hard on the mf speech set for the end of the day. Over many chapters. In fact, the actual plot is how the president's people struggle to control the message. It's not about rescuing the injured; it's not about tracking down leads to see who committed the crime; and it's not about the response to the terrorists. (Well, just barely, in the tacked-on "one year later" sort-of epilogue.) No, instead it's about the press corp and who's leaking to them and how the president's team works to keep the press happy and how her cabinet squabbles over communication tactics, trying to make the president look as engaged and presidential as possible throughout the day, especially in the speech. OMG.

All talk. All spin. All messaging. So crushingly dull.

Once in awhile I finish a book I should have DNF'ed. This was one of them. Seriously, the author is so sweet, I kept rooting for her to pull it together somehow as I half-read, half-skimmed the final 100 pages...

But nope.

Not recommended.

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