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amyhungerford's review
4.0
Boy, is this enlightening and alarming. There is no way I would have been able to handle this is Biden hadn't won the election.
I listen to audiobooks at 3x speed - It definitely doesn't help Trump sound less manic than he usually does. And he sounds manic at the best of times.
I listen to audiobooks at 3x speed - It definitely doesn't help Trump sound less manic than he usually does. And he sounds manic at the best of times.
pdougmc's review against another edition
5.0
A well-documented book that provides insight into the President that other books do not provide. I attribute this to two facets one does not find in other Trump books: Presidential access and access to primary sources. In most instances, there are direct words from the sources. Many of us have a firm belief the President is not up to the job of leading the United States. This book goes behind some of the scenes to show you just how shallow and unfit Donald Trump is for the job of President. It shows you that he cares nothing about the American people. His only interest is staying in the office. Most presidents work hard to do a good job. Donald Trump was not prepared and has no interest in preparing for the job.
tagoreketabkhane31's review
4.0
Rage, a follow up on the Trump Presidency from Woodward’s book “Fear”, follows the President mostly from his coverage and overseeing the COVID-19 Pandemic up until the initial end of the lockdown procedures in the USA, with 17 interviews conducted with the President to have him on record for his book.
Much like the speech patterns of President Trump, the book is slightly disjointed, with it starting with the shuffle that came from the Trump cabinet - focusing initially on Secretaries Mattis and Tillerson, and DNI Coats, along with mild coverage of the impeachment and the Mueller Report. I almost question if Woodward himself changed the topic of his book a third of the way in because of COVID-19.
While I personally believe that Woodward has a bit of hero worship when it comes to Secretary Mattis (and indeed, I think many Dems and independents who would otherwise be more critical of the Secretary during and post his tenure at the DoD), as a book of recent history, it is fascinating to align the interviews thatWoodward was conducting with the President and with how the populace was faring with the pandemic.
Much like the speech patterns of President Trump, the book is slightly disjointed, with it starting with the shuffle that came from the Trump cabinet - focusing initially on Secretaries Mattis and Tillerson, and DNI Coats, along with mild coverage of the impeachment and the Mueller Report. I almost question if Woodward himself changed the topic of his book a third of the way in because of COVID-19.
While I personally believe that Woodward has a bit of hero worship when it comes to Secretary Mattis (and indeed, I think many Dems and independents who would otherwise be more critical of the Secretary during and post his tenure at the DoD), as a book of recent history, it is fascinating to align the interviews thatWoodward was conducting with the President and with how the populace was faring with the pandemic.
lesserjoke's review
3.0
This title from summer 2020 is a reasonable follow-up to author Bob Woodward's Fear: Trump in the White House of two years earlier, but I don't find that the reporter has gained any new levels of insight into the 45th US president, despite his greater access. Drawing on 17 interviews with Donald Trump himself, plus countless more with other current and former members of the administration, he largely presents the same belligerent and impulsive figure, whom the nation knows exasperatingly well at this point. The inside details are somewhat interesting, like Jared Kushner's attempted playbook of not just getting his father-in-law to agree to his plans but then blocking meetings with anyone who might try to convince the man otherwise, yet in a White House marked by exceptional amounts of leaking, this information had generally already made its way to the press long before publication. There's little that's new here about the back half of the presidential term for readers who followed the news at the time.
I do think this book has merit for posterity, although the main appeal seems to be in the coverage of Trump's mishandling of the novel coronavirus pandemic, which in my opinion has been better described and contextualized elsewhere, like Lawrence Wright's The Plague Year: America in the Time of Covid. One does get the sense that the commander-in-chief was trying to listen to his advisors, but as usual, not disciplined enough to identify true subject matter experts and stay the course of following their recommendations. His natural impulse to bluster, change topics, politicize everything into a culture war of grievance, attack perceived enemies, and shift the blame ultimately rendered him, as this writer identifies, the exact wrong person for the job of navigating a crisis of that scale. I wouldn't say that this particular text is a thorough documentation of all that, however.
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I do think this book has merit for posterity, although the main appeal seems to be in the coverage of Trump's mishandling of the novel coronavirus pandemic, which in my opinion has been better described and contextualized elsewhere, like Lawrence Wright's The Plague Year: America in the Time of Covid. One does get the sense that the commander-in-chief was trying to listen to his advisors, but as usual, not disciplined enough to identify true subject matter experts and stay the course of following their recommendations. His natural impulse to bluster, change topics, politicize everything into a culture war of grievance, attack perceived enemies, and shift the blame ultimately rendered him, as this writer identifies, the exact wrong person for the job of navigating a crisis of that scale. I wouldn't say that this particular text is a thorough documentation of all that, however.
Like this review?
--Throw me a quick one-time donation here!
https://ko-fi.com/lesserjoke
--Subscribe here to support my writing and weigh in on what I read next!
https://patreon.com/lesserjoke
--Follow along on Goodreads here!
https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/6288479-joe-kessler
--Or click here to browse through all my previous reviews!
https://lesserjoke.home.blog
haloblues's review
informative
4.0
"I'm not reading between the lines," Wallace replied. "I'm reading the lines."
I told him people I talked to were saying the presidential race between him and Biden was now a coin toss.
"You know, maybe," he said. "And maybe not."
That sounded like a good description of a coin toss.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Racism, Xenophobia, and Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Bullying, Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Sexism, Sexual assault, Violence, Police brutality, Islamophobia, Mass/school shootings, Toxic friendship, Sexual harassment, War, and Classism