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annmariereads 's review for:
The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir
by John Bolton
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!