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lurker_stalker's review
4.0
It's been 3 years so I'm doing a re-read. Need some happy and humor. Blayne Cooper is always good for that.
misha_ali's review
2.0
I rated this fairly low, but finished the book so that I could give a fair and hopefully nuanced explanation. First, it’s worth noting that this is a sapphic romance from over twenty years ago and therefore representative of the time in terms of tropes, humour, and realism. If anything, it’s a solid indicator of just how far sapphic romances have come in 2023 and beyond.
To start with, this is extremely 2001 in that a lot of the humour and language is no longer acceptable in modern romance writing. Some examples:
* Saudi Prince side character is drinking champagne and kissing the hands of female diplomats.
* Slut-shaming. A random side character introduced solely to incite jealousy is called a slut. This is made worse when later in the book, we learn that Devlyn.
* Mild racism when dealing with a small diversion to a Korean restaurant and Korean food, with references to Korean food containing cats, smelling very strongly, looking like insects, and also the Korean greeter of the restaurant speaking in broken, stereotypically caricatured English.
* Devlyn having zero qualms about making the moves on or romancing someone who is literally her employee with her being in a position of great authority. If nothing else, in modern times, an out and proud lesbian who is the first woman and gay person holding the office of the POTUS would be incredibly careful about reinforcing the harmful stereotype of the predatory lesbian by coming on to her in-residence biographer who was previously married to a man.
In addition to the above, Devlyn’s characterization is alarmingly sans emotional self-restraint. She is happy to snap at, yell at, or fire people based on how they behave towards her love interest (indirect) employee. Diplomatic relations are affected by how badly Devlyn is unable to control her emotional reactions to anyone else admiring or wanting to ask out the object of her interest.
It’s an interesting contrast to compare with newer romances with ice queens that are famous and run companies or global media conglomerates (such as Elena Bartell in [b:The Brutal Truth|35335134|The Brutal Truth|Lee Winter|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1498482233l/35335134._SY75_.jpg|56700989], or Elizabeth Thornton in [b:Breaking Character|41662515|Breaking Character|Lee Winter|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1540398925l/41662515._SY75_.jpg|65003939], or Vivian Carlisle in [b:Truth and Measure|60147284|Truth and Measure|Roslyn Sinclair|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1642951020l/60147284._SY75_.jpg|94859034]) where they are ice queens because to rise to the top of their fields as women, they’ve had to display superb emotional control and restraint and continue to be accessible personally only to a select few. The Presidential model here, where Devlyn throws childish tantrums, yells at her staff when irked, and is an inarticulate mess on most occasions that are not direct public speaking, simply would not work in modern-day romances with characters embodying power as women.
Aside from the characterization, the idea that any sitting President would give no-holds-barred access with full control over what they include or how they frame things in the biography (with an explicit exception for state secrets and classified information), is laughable. Particularly when the President’s Independent party is paying several millions for said biographer to write this book. An investment of that importance and significance would absolutely have multiple levels of review and censorship which it’s unlikely that even the President could just choose to override.
Another glaring problem is that neither woman seems particularly interested in their chosen career. Devlyn takes being President for granted, using her position of power to have the taxpayers fund gifts for the object of her affection, special privileges for dates, and housing at the White House with open permission to wander. Lauren is young but an acclaimed biographer, but doesn’t seem to care that being in a relationship with the subject of her book would impact her perceived professionalism or impartiality. After this gig concludes (somehow there is a very unrealistic plan made near the end of the book to just), Lauren will not have a shred of credibility left as a serious biographer but nobody seems too concerned about it. An excellent example of this very situation is found in [b:The Brutal Truth|35335134|The Brutal Truth|Lee Winter|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1498482233l/35335134._SY75_.jpg|56700989], where Elena Bartell, despite caring a great deal for the young reporter, Maddie Grey, advises her to be shrewd in her dealings, even at the cost of her own magazine being nailed down in a less than ideal deal, and keeping Maddie at a distance until she is able to conclude her own messy divorce since they are both in the public eye and it would not be good for their careers.
All of the above were things I think may have been acceptable in 2001 for a romance novel, in terms of characterization and making it all a bit hand-wavy and fairytale-ish. Unfortunately, even without these, I was going to give this three stars at best because:
* It is far too long. This story desperately needs an editor with a very sharp knife to trim it down and speed things along.
* The incredibly abrupt switching of points of view is jarring. I lost count of the number of times I was reading from Devlyn’s point of view one paragraph and literally the next we are in Lauren’s point of view with no break or indication of the change.
* The three children were too many children. They don’t have any distinct personalities, except the oldest daughter being more vocal about missing her deceased mother and the relationship now starting with her surviving mother and her biographer. The two boys are young and interchangeably cute, loud, and messy, so it just clutters things up.
To conclude, while I did not enjoy this book, it was an important read for me to be able to get a feel for where sapphic romance literature was at the beginning of the millennium and be able to appreciate how nuanced, inclusive, and deep it is now just to be able to rise about the many releases coming out every week.
To start with, this is extremely 2001 in that a lot of the humour and language is no longer acceptable in modern romance writing. Some examples:
* Saudi Prince side character is drinking champagne and kissing the hands of female diplomats.
* Slut-shaming. A random side character introduced solely to incite jealousy is called a slut. This is made worse when later in the book, we learn that Devlyn
Spoiler
has not had much sexual experience at all, and chose to wait until after marriage with her deceased wife for some strange reason* Mild racism when dealing with a small diversion to a Korean restaurant and Korean food, with references to Korean food containing cats, smelling very strongly, looking like insects, and also the Korean greeter of the restaurant speaking in broken, stereotypically caricatured English.
* Devlyn having zero qualms about making the moves on or romancing someone who is literally her employee with her being in a position of great authority. If nothing else, in modern times, an out and proud lesbian who is the first woman and gay person holding the office of the POTUS would be incredibly careful about reinforcing the harmful stereotype of the predatory lesbian by coming on to her in-residence biographer who was previously married to a man.
In addition to the above, Devlyn’s characterization is alarmingly sans emotional self-restraint. She is happy to snap at, yell at, or fire people based on how they behave towards her love interest (indirect) employee. Diplomatic relations are affected by how badly Devlyn is unable to control her emotional reactions to anyone else admiring or wanting to ask out the object of her interest.
It’s an interesting contrast to compare with newer romances with ice queens that are famous and run companies or global media conglomerates (such as Elena Bartell in [b:The Brutal Truth|35335134|The Brutal Truth|Lee Winter|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1498482233l/35335134._SY75_.jpg|56700989], or Elizabeth Thornton in [b:Breaking Character|41662515|Breaking Character|Lee Winter|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1540398925l/41662515._SY75_.jpg|65003939], or Vivian Carlisle in [b:Truth and Measure|60147284|Truth and Measure|Roslyn Sinclair|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1642951020l/60147284._SY75_.jpg|94859034]) where they are ice queens because to rise to the top of their fields as women, they’ve had to display superb emotional control and restraint and continue to be accessible personally only to a select few. The Presidential model here, where Devlyn throws childish tantrums, yells at her staff when irked, and is an inarticulate mess on most occasions that are not direct public speaking, simply would not work in modern-day romances with characters embodying power as women.
Aside from the characterization, the idea that any sitting President would give no-holds-barred access with full control over what they include or how they frame things in the biography (with an explicit exception for state secrets and classified information), is laughable. Particularly when the President’s Independent party is paying several millions for said biographer to write this book. An investment of that importance and significance would absolutely have multiple levels of review and censorship which it’s unlikely that even the President could just choose to override.
Another glaring problem is that neither woman seems particularly interested in their chosen career. Devlyn takes being President for granted, using her position of power to have the taxpayers fund gifts for the object of her affection, special privileges for dates, and housing at the White House with open permission to wander. Lauren is young but an acclaimed biographer, but doesn’t seem to care that being in a relationship with the subject of her book would impact her perceived professionalism or impartiality. After this gig concludes (somehow there is a very unrealistic plan made near the end of the book to just
Spoiler
transfer the costs and all the top secret material Lauren has had access to over to a third-party publisherAll of the above were things I think may have been acceptable in 2001 for a romance novel, in terms of characterization and making it all a bit hand-wavy and fairytale-ish. Unfortunately, even without these, I was going to give this three stars at best because:
* It is far too long. This story desperately needs an editor with a very sharp knife to trim it down and speed things along.
* The incredibly abrupt switching of points of view is jarring. I lost count of the number of times I was reading from Devlyn’s point of view one paragraph and literally the next we are in Lauren’s point of view with no break or indication of the change.
* The three children were too many children. They don’t have any distinct personalities, except the oldest daughter being more vocal about missing her deceased mother and the relationship now starting with her surviving mother and her biographer. The two boys are young and interchangeably cute, loud, and messy, so it just clutters things up.
To conclude, while I did not enjoy this book, it was an important read for me to be able to get a feel for where sapphic romance literature was at the beginning of the millennium and be able to appreciate how nuanced, inclusive, and deep it is now just to be able to rise about the many releases coming out every week.
rebl's review
2.0
DNF. I really struggled. The premise is GREAT, but by 25% I couldn't concentrate. The head hopping is so frequent and so unpredictable I had to re-read passages to work out who was thinking what. Then, when Lauren visited a Korean restaurant and the descriptions were unflattering, stereotypical and near-racist, I lost all respect for the character. I wanted to like this, but it didn't work for me.
agentkp's review
It felt surreal to read a book written in 2000's about 2022. But also its written weirdly as it felt like they didn't want to go too sci fi but they also wrote a lot like it was still 2000 and nothing had really changed which felt just off. The characters...were very hard to like bc their personalities seemed to not be fully developed sometimes. What got me the most though was how they didn't address the actual reasons they shouldn't be together while making up bullshit reasons to not be together. Their reasons just being oh idk if she likes me but in a very middle grade way instead of like one is thr fucking president of the united states and everyone she gets involved with cant just be a casual thing plus shes a widow and has 3 kids so the person also has to be present in their lives?? Yeah it was just a bunch of things that as much as I didnt wanna drop were grating at me.
melissasarahrobinson's review
4.0
The United States has elected the first woman President and Devlyn Marlowe and her three children move into the White House. President Marlowe is a widow, whose wife was killed in a car crash several years before.
That’s right, the first woman president is also a lesbian. The year is 2021 and when President Marlowe invites Lauren Strayer, her attractive, single biographer to stay with her in the White House there is a predictable amount of political scandal.
In typical romantic novel fashion, there is tension while readers wait for Dev and Lauren to succumb to their feelings of love. The situation is complicated by Dev’s presidency (assisination attempts, domestic terrorism and the like) and by Lauren’s relationship with her parents.
As a political science major and a huge West Wing fan, I like my political fiction to contain a little more accuracy, but as a lesbian romance novel, Madam President gets a thumbs up for being engaging and sweet. I’ll definitely be picking up the sequel First Lady.
That’s right, the first woman president is also a lesbian. The year is 2021 and when President Marlowe invites Lauren Strayer, her attractive, single biographer to stay with her in the White House there is a predictable amount of political scandal.
In typical romantic novel fashion, there is tension while readers wait for Dev and Lauren to succumb to their feelings of love. The situation is complicated by Dev’s presidency (assisination attempts, domestic terrorism and the like) and by Lauren’s relationship with her parents.
As a political science major and a huge West Wing fan, I like my political fiction to contain a little more accuracy, but as a lesbian romance novel, Madam President gets a thumbs up for being engaging and sweet. I’ll definitely be picking up the sequel First Lady.
kallielarsen's review against another edition
1.0
I cannot believe someone published this. The writing was so bad, the characters weren’t in any way believable, there were words used incorrectly… i can’t believe i made it a third of the way through before giving up.
ekalmusla's review
2.0
I can always appreciate a wellrounded story, and this novel provided that. But without a strong conflict, it felt a bit was left to be desired. However, this is my own personal opinion, and the story was still quite enjoyable all the way through.
jediroot's review
2.0
Wow, I am in the minority of not liking this novel so much. It is just too long and not that much happening to fill in book this long. I kind of feel like the author tell what is happening through out the book instead of showing and the humor is little too cheesy for my taste. I like both characters, but I feel like there are not much development happening except for their relationship slowly growing. I keep wondering when this story will end constantly while reading and that is not a good thing. I really wish I could enjoy this novel more as I really like the concept, but unfortunately I just don't.
ekalmusla's review against another edition
2.0
I can always appreciate a wellrounded story, and this novel provided that. But without a strong conflict, it felt a bit was left to be desired. However, this is my own personal opinion, and the story was still quite enjoyable all the way through.