Take a photo of a barcode or cover
2.7 AVERAGE
2.7 AVERAGE
This book was a slog for me. It was almost completely about foreign policy, which I should have realized. I did learn a lot. This book did show how difficult it is working with Trump and how his lack of backbone and decision-making skills impact the working of the White House. If you're looking for Trump dirt you probably want to read the niece's book.
I had 2 major difficulties reading this, but they may not be problems for other readers. One is that Bolton likes to put as much info as possible into a sentence which caused me to reread quite often. The other is that the book is set up in chapters about area of conflict, ie. China, Afghanistan, and I became confused about the timeline and overlapping dates of previous chapters. Does that make sense?
I had 2 major difficulties reading this, but they may not be problems for other readers. One is that Bolton likes to put as much info as possible into a sentence which caused me to reread quite often. The other is that the book is set up in chapters about area of conflict, ie. China, Afghanistan, and I became confused about the timeline and overlapping dates of previous chapters. Does that make sense?
I highly recommend giving this [audio]book a chance if you found yourself amazed or appalled by our handling of foreign policy over the past four years. I fundamentally disagree with author John Bolton on many issues. However, the insights from someone on the inside of Pres. Trumps' administration were insightful. They rounded out my contextual understanding on many issues the US has experienced over the past 4 years. If anything, I now find our awkward "handling" on the DPRK, Syria, Iran, Ukraine and Russia even more disheartening.
I couldn't finish this nor even get much more than 100 pages in. What a self-serving right-wing warmonger.
Should have skipped to the few page that were interesting... the rest well it helped to make me fall asleep.
I enjoyed this book. It was an interesting look into the Trump administration. I wasn’t surprised by the in-fighting and disorganization of Trumps inner circle or Bolton’s view of the terrible way Trump talked to his team and put them against each other. It’s like one big popularity contest in that administration. For me, this book wasn’t a big bashing of Trump at all. I expected far worse.
Bolton seemed to write his book directly from his appointment calendar, filling it with uninteresting details. It was almost as if he went back to his calendar for each day and wrote minute-by-minute musings that reminded him how much smarter he was than everyone else. He was unkind and insulting to Trump, which was probably all he could do in the presence of such a disinterested, emotional weakling. The story (not that it's really even a story at all) was as much about Bolton's arrogance and hawkish ideology as it was about Trump's ineptitude, but both were on display in full, boring black and white. Even the boldface, direct insults to Trump were more sad than interesting. Thanks for the boredom, John, now go away.
I can't quite believe I finished this book.
Nothing in this book was in the least bit surprising to me, and probably wouldn't be surprising to any of my friends who lean Democrat. Instead it was a story of how Bolton himself was surprised. If you think Bolton's resignation is the biggest thing to happen politically in this decade, then read on because this book certainly operates under that assumption. If you think you'll be alarmed that Trump is incompetent, then read on, because this book certainly would like us to be alarmed.
But it's really no surprise to many of us, which made this a ho-hum book.
Also, stealing a line from Hamilton to title your book that within its pages disparages immigrants? Disgusting. Glad Bolton kind of sort of woke up to what we all knew. Really depressing that it took so long.
Nothing in this book was in the least bit surprising to me, and probably wouldn't be surprising to any of my friends who lean Democrat. Instead it was a story of how Bolton himself was surprised. If you think Bolton's resignation is the biggest thing to happen politically in this decade, then read on because this book certainly operates under that assumption. If you think you'll be alarmed that Trump is incompetent, then read on, because this book certainly would like us to be alarmed.
But it's really no surprise to many of us, which made this a ho-hum book.
Also, stealing a line from Hamilton to title your book that within its pages disparages immigrants? Disgusting. Glad Bolton kind of sort of woke up to what we all knew. Really depressing that it took so long.
So, I didn't get to listen to this whole thing, but what I did listen to was horrifying... I appreciated Bolton's wry humor and blunt honesty.
Insightful, detailed, explicit and title believable. We have a President who is truly clueless, narcissistic, spiteful and cares only about himself. Me Boltono notes on the infamous Ukraine call that got Trump impeached is jaw dropping. He did ask for a favor in asking to have the Ukrainian president get dirt on Biden and Clinton in exchange for military aid.
There’s a good ghost writer behind this book, but it nevertheless amounts to little more than a 500+ page rant which might be moderately interesting if any of it was even a little surprising.