From the other side
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Not so often do we get to read the memoirs of a gopher, especially one quite so full of his own importance. But all said this gives a really interesting and light hearted spin on some stories that you can imagine may well appear in other more serious memoirs, that just happen to be written in a different light.
Even the most mundane acts are transformed into crisis point situations, national emergencies, but Buckley achieves this while showing that our hero really could have felt this way.
Its a quick to read, light and funny book.
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Disappointingly amusing
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The White House Mess is a parody of those self-important memoirs that crop up after every change of administration in the White House. As such, it's competent, and funny in its own way. However, the joke of having a minor player constantly over-estimate his own importance does wear thin after a while, well before the book's end. Devotees of "The West Wing" (which started after this book's first publcation in the US, but before its UK reprint) will not find the sophistication of wit that they have come to expect from a not-always-as-competent-as-they'd-like-to-think administration. I came to this book expecting great things, after loving the same author's "No Way To Treat a First Lady". While I had fun reading The White House Mess, it's a pale shadow of what it could have been.
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A mess indeed .....
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I was recomended this book by a friend and wasn't able to put it down until I reached the back page. Written as a fictional memoir of a White House staffer it follows the regularly comical journey of the President through a term in office. There were occasions when reading this book I found myself laughing out loud, it is at times so farcical you (worryingly) almost start to beleive it could be true. There are times when you wonder what can possibly happen next, but happen they do. Spin doctors the world over may do well to read this book, as an example of exactly how, even with the best intentions, things can go wrong. It just goes to show power is a dangerous thing in the wrong hands.
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United States | 
United Kingdom | 
Canada