The kind of book a therapist might tell you to write to get it out of your system.
Yet another tell-all from a disgruntled Trump administration ex, this time from the East Wing.
“Imagine if your close friend suddenly, unexpectedly, became one of the most powerful, influential women in the whole world,” writes Wolkoff, the founder of a consulting agency and former director of special events for Vogue, in this tedious, opportunistic memoir. A few years later, the author read this headline on the front page of the New York Times: “Trump’s Inaugural Committee Paid $26 Million to First Lady’s Friend.” As Wolkoff writes, “my personal compensation for my work on the inauguration that I retained was $480,000….Many people working on the inauguration made far more than I did.” To be fair, the author is one of countless victims of the Trump propensity for stiffing former employees and then smearing them publicly, and she notes that, after attorney fees, she is “in the hole almost a million dollars.” The book deal should help recoup some of those expenses. Though the author sets the record straight in mind-numbing detail—more than 80 pages cover the day-by-day planning of the inauguration—she offers scant fresh information about Melania or her husband’s administration. Was Melania upset about the Access Hollywood tape? No. Is she close with Ivanka? No. Throughout the book, which is about 100 pages too long, the author documents her relationship with her former friend via the many texts they exchanged, replete with heart emojis and effusive declarations of love—e.g., “I LOVE YOU…XOXO.” For far too long, the author admits, she was stuck in “Mel-La-Lania Land,” but she fails to provide enough interesting material from behind the wall. The best news coming from the book is that at least one 2016 voter has changed her mind about DJT, as he is called here.
The kind of book a therapist might tell you to write to get it out of your system.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-5124-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2020
IN THE NEWS
SEEN & HEARD
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
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