Fire & Fury, a Review

via Daily Prompt: Stifle

Word count = 425 / Reading time = 1 minute, 50 seconds

Star rating:  2 of 5 (review also posted on Goodreads)

If you’re interested, you can read the Goodreads synopsis of the book here.

I don’t know how truthful the many claims made in Fire and Fury are, but given what I’ve seen and heard of Trump in the media over the past two decades, I deem them to be not just plausible but highly probable.

Following his legal team’s failed attempt to stifle the book, Trump of course dismissed it as a work of fiction.  There’s considerable irony in his denunciation.  Wolff states explicitly, boldly, unequivocally, and repeatedly that the mainstream liberal media despise Trump and seek to damage his reputation, which would seem to be affirmation of Trump’s frequent complaints about the media.  So which is it, Trump?  Is this a work of fiction, or are the media really out to get you?

Even though the events described in the book infuriated me, I enjoyed the book and think it’s an important piece of journalism.  One reason I only rated it 2 stars is that I’m offended by the lifestyles, attitudes, petulant sense of entitlement, and actions of the ridiculously wealthy and undeservedly powerful assholes who dominate our ruling class.  At times, reading about the inner workings of our government made me physically ill.

But the main reason I rated Fire and Fury 2 stars instead of 4 is that it is riddled with errors in spelling and grammar.  This is a disturbing and growing trend in modern publishing that I’ve commented on in previous reviews and is a sure way to knock a star or two off one of my reviews.  Sometimes the errors occur only once every 3 – 5 pages, but occasionally they’re more frequent and even, a couple of times, come 2 to a page.  Here are just a few examples:  From p. 127, “Bannon was making his first official pubic appearance” (should be ‘public’); from p. 179, “the dream, long differed” (should be ‘deferred’); from p. 188, “Hope Hicks, after more than a year at this side” (should be ‘his’); and finally, from p. 291, “with mounting ferocity and pubic venom” (again, should be ‘public’) and “short-on-answers problem that that he believed” (there should only be one ‘that’).

Overall, I enjoyed the book even though it made me want to puke.  But when an author and his editorial team can’t be bothered to do a more professional job of editing basics like spelling and grammar, I can’t help but question how much attention was paid to fact-checking and accurate reporting.