It’s worth a nickel

… and I kind of love that headline, because it’s so provocative.

Perhaps needless to say, I don’t actually know any of the children of US Presidents. In fact, most of them died long before I was born, but even the contemporary ones don’t exactly run in the same social circles that I do, and so I’ve never even been given a chance to actually hate any of them.

Having said that, though, I do hate All the Presidents’ Children by Doug Wead.

I rarely refuse to finish a book. I feel that once I’ve invested the time to select, pick up, and begin to read a book, it deserves my attention. It deserves to be read.

Mr. Wead, you’ve challenged that assertion. Your bland, uninspired prose allowed me to quit on page 76. The book jumps around constantly, to the point that I was left uncertain more than once as to whom I was reading about. Pronouns are used indiscriminately, leaving me to wonder if the book was edited at all. I wonder whether the authors close connections to the Bush family are the reason this book was published at all; had it been left to my devices, it would have been tossed into the fire as so much kindling.

In short: don’t bother.