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A review by komet2020
Jackie: Public, Private, Secret by J. Randy Taraborrelli
emotional
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
JACKIE: Public, Private, Secret is an extensive, engaging, comprehensive, and at times entertaining biography of one of the 20th century's most famous women, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis.
Reading this book helped to add to my understanding of an intriguing, perplexing, and extraordinary woman who helped to shape, with her first husband, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, a short-lived renaissance in a decade (the 1960s) that would also be marked by conflict and tragedy. She was like the phoenix, who arose reborn from the ashes left in the wake of President Kennedy's assassination, and lived out the remainder of her life not far from the view of the public, as fully as possible.
This is an easily readable book that also explores the varied and complex relationships that Jackie Onassis had with her family, associates, and friends, which gives the reader the full measure of a woman who, despite being a unique, public figure, managed to live a life with its store of secrets.
J. Randy Taraborrelli should be complimented for the depth and quality of research he brought to Jackie. There is a section in the book that lists all the various sources he used in preparing this biography.
For anyone with a special interest in Jackie Onassis, I highly recommend this book. It shows, as Jackie's mother, Janet Auchincloss, once observed of her oldest child: "There's something about her that's so unique. No one I know looks like her, speaks like her, writes like her, or has a better idea of who she's expected to be in the world. She was much too young to be widowed when we lost Jack. It wasn't fair. But somehow, she goes ever forward despite a tragedy so great it would've destroyed most other women. Winston Churchill once said, 'It's the courage to continue that counts.' I believe that's true, and I have so much admiration for my daughter's courage."
Reading this book helped to add to my understanding of an intriguing, perplexing, and extraordinary woman who helped to shape, with her first husband, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, a short-lived renaissance in a decade (the 1960s) that would also be marked by conflict and tragedy. She was like the phoenix, who arose reborn from the ashes left in the wake of President Kennedy's assassination, and lived out the remainder of her life not far from the view of the public, as fully as possible.
This is an easily readable book that also explores the varied and complex relationships that Jackie Onassis had with her family, associates, and friends, which gives the reader the full measure of a woman who, despite being a unique, public figure, managed to live a life with its store of secrets.
J. Randy Taraborrelli should be complimented for the depth and quality of research he brought to Jackie. There is a section in the book that lists all the various sources he used in preparing this biography.
For anyone with a special interest in Jackie Onassis, I highly recommend this book. It shows, as Jackie's mother, Janet Auchincloss, once observed of her oldest child: "There's something about her that's so unique. No one I know looks like her, speaks like her, writes like her, or has a better idea of who she's expected to be in the world. She was much too young to be widowed when we lost Jack. It wasn't fair. But somehow, she goes ever forward despite a tragedy so great it would've destroyed most other women. Winston Churchill once said, 'It's the courage to continue that counts.' I believe that's true, and I have so much admiration for my daughter's courage."