Read + Review: Unpresidented by Martha Brockenbrough

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This book is a biography about Donald Trump, the 45th (and current) President of the United States. The novel started by following the life Friedrich Trump, who was the first member of his family to immigrate to the United States, as he attempted to make a name for himself in New York City. He eventually became very involved with restaurant business and had a son, Fred Trump, who fell in love with real estate, and eventually passed on this love to Donald. The rest of the novel details stories from Trump’s early life in military school and college and the first deals he made as a real estate mogul. Along the way, he gained a lot of popularity and a pedigree as one of the figureheads of business in New York City. He also became very involved in politics for the latter part of his life, which ultimately led to his decision to run for the election in 2016. After being elected on November 8, 2016, the rest is history.

I enjoyed that the novel was very thorough in terms of information on not only Donald Trump, but also his family members and other significant members of his campaign. I could tell that there was a lot of outside research that was compiled to make Trump’s life story complete. The one thing I didn’t like, however, was that there were some parts of the book that were relatively uninteresting and difficult to follow at times. When Brockenbrough wrote about various deals and lawsuits filed against him, there were a lot of monetary figures and financial terms that I had relatively little knowledge of. This novel requires a lot of knowledge and concentration to fully understand.

The most memorable aspect of this book is all the blasphemy that Trump told to reporters, stated online. The author decided to include dozens of quotes and Twitter posts from before and after his presidency to showcase his extremely aggressive nature and reluctance to accept basic facts. I already knew before reading this book that a lot of what he said was crazy, but the novel will truly show you an even crazier side to him that most have never seen before.

Reviewed by Griffin G., Gayton Library