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2.71 AVERAGE
2.71 AVERAGE
challenging
informative
reflective
tense
medium-paced
While I disagree with pretty much everything Bolton believes in and stands for, knowing how immensely frustrated this man was with how Trump is as a person as well as a president does raise some form of sympathy. The chaos was so much worse behind the scenes!
.Geez, what a slogfest this book was. Hard to read. Stilted prose.
Reading this book, it proved one thing (maybe several things): The current government is run by a group of egocentric imbeciles. Decisions are made by what's best for the government leaders' personal pocketbooks, decision making is down by the ostrich method (if you don't know what's going on and can't see it, then it doesn't count and you're not responsible), and presidential advisors are chosen by how photogenic they are or how close the familial relationship is. It's clear that this government is run like it's a personal fiefdom.
Although I don't agree with Bolton's politics, and found his attitude towards those with a liberal bent to be patronizing, he did appear to have the country's well-being at the forefront of his decision making. But you would think his arm would get tired from patting himself on the back.
3.5 stars - If you would have told me a year ago that I would buy and read a book by John Bolton, the National Security Advisor to the current president, I would have laughed at you. Yet here we are.
John Bolton, who worked for Reagan and both Bush administrations spent only 453 days in The White House like many of his colleagues and their brief tenures. He describes in detail what daily life is like trying to keep the president in line and let’s just say it’s horribly chaotic. He punctuates his observations with numerous sources and with a great sense of sarcasm.
This book surprised me in so many ways. Like, I know things had to be bad at The White House but WOW. Bolton and his staff are constantly on their toes, playing damage control more than getting things accomplished.
Another thing that surprised me is that a lot of the time people actually HELP him write those tweets. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of the time he runs them by no one, but if he showed ME a tweet, I would go full on grammar police on him.
There were many moments that were so absurd that my jaw would drop - every single conversation with Kim Jong Un, thinking that Finland was part of Russia, or that Venezuela was basically part of the United States.
About the halfway mark, this books gets in the weeds. Whew. I found myself skimming pages as Bolton philosophized about policies, laws, treaties, agreements, etc.
Also, I know you can probably guess my political leanings from this review, but I will say, Bolton chastises the president about being too soft when he doesn’t want to kill innocent Iranians and I found myself agreeing with Trump’s choice. Bolton can be pretty harsh.
This book was still super interesting and illuminating, even at 3.5 stars. No matter your political leanings, give this one a read. And be sure to VOTE!
John Bolton, who worked for Reagan and both Bush administrations spent only 453 days in The White House like many of his colleagues and their brief tenures. He describes in detail what daily life is like trying to keep the president in line and let’s just say it’s horribly chaotic. He punctuates his observations with numerous sources and with a great sense of sarcasm.
This book surprised me in so many ways. Like, I know things had to be bad at The White House but WOW. Bolton and his staff are constantly on their toes, playing damage control more than getting things accomplished.
Another thing that surprised me is that a lot of the time people actually HELP him write those tweets. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of the time he runs them by no one, but if he showed ME a tweet, I would go full on grammar police on him.
There were many moments that were so absurd that my jaw would drop - every single conversation with Kim Jong Un, thinking that Finland was part of Russia, or that Venezuela was basically part of the United States.
About the halfway mark, this books gets in the weeds. Whew. I found myself skimming pages as Bolton philosophized about policies, laws, treaties, agreements, etc.
Also, I know you can probably guess my political leanings from this review, but I will say, Bolton chastises the president about being too soft when he doesn’t want to kill innocent Iranians and I found myself agreeing with Trump’s choice. Bolton can be pretty harsh.
This book was still super interesting and illuminating, even at 3.5 stars. No matter your political leanings, give this one a read. And be sure to VOTE!
Here's a title of a book based on Hamilton Broadway song "The room where it happened". I wanted to know if John Bolton makes a reference to Hamilton the musical and he does.
I give this book a low rating mainly because it was at least for me very hard to read. Here were my problems:
1. The narrative structure is not exactly chronological. John Bolton starts telling his story right before he became the national security adviser. Then the memoir breaks down to individual international problems he was involved in. A lot of the issues were going on simultaneously, but these issues were sections off into separate chapters. I can understand that this was done to focused on the issue at hand, but it was hard to follow the order of events as a whole in his tenure. A narrative like this to me is hard to see Mr. Bolton's progression of frustration in his job.
2. The language was hard to get into. John interjects a lot of side comments and has a whole lot of run on sentences. He also has a lot of incomplete sentences. It's written in a way that he is talking to his audience. Unfortunately, this is a book and I did not always get the nuances.
3. Poorly written and organization. Did anyone else see typos as well? To me this book was rushed and you can tell.
4. A bit too repetitive, even if Trump repeated himself all the time.
Mr. Bolton explains some changes he had to make in terms of paraphrasing and quotes, but I don't think it would have helped with his writing.
I went into this book knowing that this man had an ego and an ego to defend against Trump. This book is a memoir so the view points will be bias, but I took his voice to be honest. I took his concerns to be genuine. Although, I personally do not agree with his point of view on a lot of the issues at least he is principled. That already says a lot compare to Trump.
I give this book a low rating mainly because it was at least for me very hard to read. Here were my problems:
1. The narrative structure is not exactly chronological. John Bolton starts telling his story right before he became the national security adviser. Then the memoir breaks down to individual international problems he was involved in. A lot of the issues were going on simultaneously, but these issues were sections off into separate chapters. I can understand that this was done to focused on the issue at hand, but it was hard to follow the order of events as a whole in his tenure. A narrative like this to me is hard to see Mr. Bolton's progression of frustration in his job.
2. The language was hard to get into. John interjects a lot of side comments and has a whole lot of run on sentences. He also has a lot of incomplete sentences. It's written in a way that he is talking to his audience. Unfortunately, this is a book and I did not always get the nuances.
3. Poorly written and organization. Did anyone else see typos as well? To me this book was rushed and you can tell.
4. A bit too repetitive, even if Trump repeated himself all the time.
Mr. Bolton explains some changes he had to make in terms of paraphrasing and quotes, but I don't think it would have helped with his writing.
I went into this book knowing that this man had an ego and an ego to defend against Trump. This book is a memoir so the view points will be bias, but I took his voice to be honest. I took his concerns to be genuine. Although, I personally do not agree with his point of view on a lot of the issues at least he is principled. That already says a lot compare to Trump.
Have you ever gone to a coworker’s wedding reception without a plus one and struck up a conversation with someone at your assigned table? You ask a polite question, and two (feels like 48) hours later, that person has told you every detail of a mediocre story, and you missed the cake cutting.
That’s what this book felt like. But I finished it because I am not a quitter.
That’s what this book felt like. But I finished it because I am not a quitter.
informative
slow-paced
An informative book of the behind the scenes of the Donal Trump presidency. A lot of the tea that Bolton had hyped didn't seem like anything unexpected of Trump.
At the end of the book, I found myself disagreeing more with Bolton's stance of direct military action as a solution for any foreign problem. His view of America's need to dominate the world-stage to push American sovereignty forward left a bad taste in my mouth.
At the end of the book, I found myself disagreeing more with Bolton's stance of direct military action as a solution for any foreign problem. His view of America's need to dominate the world-stage to push American sovereignty forward left a bad taste in my mouth.
There are times where I hate rating a book. Did I like this book, um, no. It gave me a panic attack. John Bolton isn’t a “good guy.” He proudly wears his war hawk hat and considers any diplomacy to be weak. It is only because of Trump’s capricious nature and his inability to focus on anything other than himself that we aren’t at war with Iran and North Korea. Read that again, Trump is the reason we aren’t at war with two nuclear or soon to be nuclear regimes. Bolton thinks he’s the smartest person in the room but is maneuvered around constantly by a guy who can’t keep the names of leaders straight.
However, I think this book has an important place in the larger conversation about Trump’s presidency. He is a failure of a leader and all his flip flopping in foreign affairs makes it clear this is the same bullshit that is happening with Covid. He is incapable of making a decision based on any sort of moral grounding but instead follows whatever whims are moving him at the moment. This book will be an important point as we move forward to understanding the disaster that is unfolding. So much stuff makes sense now.
So what rating would you give this book?
However, I think this book has an important place in the larger conversation about Trump’s presidency. He is a failure of a leader and all his flip flopping in foreign affairs makes it clear this is the same bullshit that is happening with Covid. He is incapable of making a decision based on any sort of moral grounding but instead follows whatever whims are moving him at the moment. This book will be an important point as we move forward to understanding the disaster that is unfolding. So much stuff makes sense now.
So what rating would you give this book?
I enjoyed this book. There were facts I didn’t know or had forgotten. I liked the behind the scenes
I'm not going to rate this because I'm not sure how to, but if Trump tweeted about it I figured I should read it. Given the nature of the book I knew the political leaning of it beforehand but it was so hard to read (probably partly because of the stance) and there was an assumption the reader would know all the people mentioned, and I don't know various government members of 6 different countries.The UK and EU bits were interesting but the style was such a slog. The only reason I made it as far as I did was because it was lent to me.
I do think the Hamilton reference in the title is amusing. This was an interesting read on the Trump presidency. First my favorite thing from this book is the term "Axis of Adults." Many of the things that are being denied by this administration are backed up by Bolton, ahem COVID-19 and not exactly love of the military. One thing to consider is that this was reviewed to ensure that classified information was not used in the book, and the fact that Trump is very much a lawsuit person and would have no issues suing Bolton for libel if this was not true. Bolton does have an arrogance and I honestly believes he think he could be a better President that those that he has worked for and against. I was surprised by how much Trump was bending over backwards to please North Korea -especially with the war games. Bolton did state that Trump cannot tell the difference between his personal interest and the country's interest. Many times the Logan Act has been brought up against the Trump administration for violating the Hatch and Logan Acts. I found it very interesting that Trump wanted John Kerry persecuted under the Logan Act - is the pot calling the kettle black? I also found it interesting that if tried the Logan Act would be declared un-Constitutional. If that is the case then why does it exist? However, all this being said Bolton did state, "I don't want facts slowing down the narrative flow." I think this was more about getting into the weeds, but when the term "alternative facts" exists only because of this administration it does show the importance of facts.