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A review by ghost_of_the_library
The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House by Kate Andersen Brower
3.0
After having read 2 books on american first ladies, and a few bios about a couple of presidents i knew next to nothing about, i was planning on a break from the topic...and then i came across this one at my library!
Well this was certainly the right book to start the year with - easy enough to read, with some history and some very sweet endearing stories that the staff of the White House shared about the former/present first families.
The way to book is structured however takes a little bit of patience and good will to get used to, and its one of the reasons why i dont give it 5 stars.
in, i am guessing, an attempt to keep the tone of the book as a sort of conversation with the reader, the author chose to not divide the chapters by presidents/families - instead all first families mingle in between chapters, that each have a topic of their own. It makes for some confused reading and at times "cuts" the nice rythm of the book...just when you are delving into a story, another first family and another story suddenly gets in the middle!..a bit confusing.
The other reason why i refrain from the 5 stars is the, to me, underlying tone of republican presidents were darlings, democrat presidents were not - even with the current first family you have a tone of "its brilliant that they are the first african american first family but...." .
Basically i found it at times to be somewhat prejudiced towards anyone/anything that wasn't republican...which somewhat annoyed me - and no, i am not a democrat!
All in all, fast read, very interesting information on the WH and the huge logistics needed to make it work smoothly - its impressive really! - plus some funny tidbits that more or less confirmed by personal opinions of past first families...not a read to go down in memory, but certainly not a bad book.
Well this was certainly the right book to start the year with - easy enough to read, with some history and some very sweet endearing stories that the staff of the White House shared about the former/present first families.
The way to book is structured however takes a little bit of patience and good will to get used to, and its one of the reasons why i dont give it 5 stars.
in, i am guessing, an attempt to keep the tone of the book as a sort of conversation with the reader, the author chose to not divide the chapters by presidents/families - instead all first families mingle in between chapters, that each have a topic of their own. It makes for some confused reading and at times "cuts" the nice rythm of the book...just when you are delving into a story, another first family and another story suddenly gets in the middle!..a bit confusing.
The other reason why i refrain from the 5 stars is the, to me, underlying tone of republican presidents were darlings, democrat presidents were not - even with the current first family you have a tone of "its brilliant that they are the first african american first family but...." .
Basically i found it at times to be somewhat prejudiced towards anyone/anything that wasn't republican...which somewhat annoyed me - and no, i am not a democrat!
All in all, fast read, very interesting information on the WH and the huge logistics needed to make it work smoothly - its impressive really! - plus some funny tidbits that more or less confirmed by personal opinions of past first families...not a read to go down in memory, but certainly not a bad book.