Reviews for Unhinged

by Omarosa Manigault Newman

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

The one-time reality TV contestant and player in an ongoing White House drama bares alland hints at more.According to Newman, there's a recording out there with the N-word spilling out of the mouth of the sitting president. "During production," she writes, "he was miked, and there is definitely an audio track." That she or some other former staffer hasn't brought forth such a thing, she suggests, is just a matter of time, but no matter. Here, the former Apprentice cast member dishes on Donald Trumpand just about everyone else in the White House in the last couple of years. A few are spared: Anthony Scaramucci, for instance, was "cocky and arrogantbut oddly likable," while Trump referred to Kellyanne Conway's contrarian husband as "Flip," for "f*cking little island people," a reference to his Filipino heritage. As for first daughter Ivanka? "Like her father," writes the author, "Ivanka was thin-skinned and could not seem to take a joke." But most of the news, such as it is, in this memoir is about Trump himself, and there's not much that even the casual observer wouldn't know: Trump thrives on chaos? Check. He has anger issues? Check. The White House is a mess? Check. The memoir serves as reinforcement, in other words, rather than as fresh meat, and as such, it's fairly dispensable, especially as the author attempts to explain why she went to the Trump side in the first place: She came from a rough side of town where wealth and power were aspirations and those who had them were role models, and as for his aberrations, well, "he was just overwhelmed, as we all were, by the awesome responsibility of leading the nation." Once the veil is lifted and she escapes "from the cult of Trumpworld," things get a little more criticalRacist? Check. Rattled? Checkbut no more newsworthy.Firmly in the secondary tier of books about the bizarre, chaotic crew at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Back