Customer Reviews

Laura Bush: An Intimate Portrait of the First Lady

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I loved this book. I bought this book after reading a library copy.

This book is based on interviews with Laura Bush's friends. It reveals friendships that are full of caring, insight, jokes, loyalty and sincerity. I would like to be as good a friend to the people I love as I think Laura Bush is to the people she loves. Laura Bush is still friends with schoolmates from high school and college! And they are very smart and also funny!

In reading this book, I found out that Laura loves to clean. One of her friends said cleaning supplies are Laura's favorite substances. No one in my family feels that way! But I find Laura's attitude inspiring, funny and helpful. Now, when something around here needs cleaning, I think of Laura's enthusiasm. I find that it is much easier and more fun to tackle cleaning with enthusiasm than to go through it with a dismal attitude.

I liked Laura Bush before I read this book. Based on the impressions shared by her friends, it seems to me that she always tries to do her best but without taking herself too seriously. She is smart, sensible, witty and also kind. And she loves to read!! And I love to read!! And I love people who love to read!!

I liked her very much to begin with, and having read the book, I like her better. In fact, I have added Laura Bush to my virtual team and I consider her an awesome virtual friend and consultant.

I wish her well and thank her for her contributions as First Lady. Thank you, Laura!

I think this is an excellent book, with revealing insights into Laura Bush's friendships and life. It is not a snarky critical book and I was grateful for that. I'm not interested in snark and criticism (well, hardly at all). I'm interested in encouraging people to be their best and to enjoy life. I think this book does that, and I highly recommend it.

For all those women who thought/think Laura Bush is just doing what she is told and has no opinions of her own or who believe what Teresa Heinz Kerry so slanderously said, please, please read this book. Mr. Kessler has done a very thorough job researching every incident he reports in the book by interviewing multiple sources of Mrs. Bush's friends, acquaintances and others to bring a more complete picture of her background, childhood, teenage years -- including a tragic automobile accident -- and college days along with her careers as a teacher and a librarian.

Mr. Kessler also goes through how she handled campaigning and the limelight haviang to overcome her shyness to her most recent "comedic" performance in 2005 at the White House Correspondents dinner.

Throughout this book we can see that Mrs. Bush remains faithful to her own principles and moral values and faith as well as loyal to her friends and family. I have always thought when I have heard her on talk shows and elsewhere that she seemed like a very classy lady and she is. She would be a joy to have as a friend and is certainly improving the "First Lady" image and bringing back the elegance that was sorely needed in that office and the White House.

Read it!

I liked this book but it wasn't great. I was wanting some insight to Laura Bush and her marriage. Mr. Kessler didn't do that. He repeated numerous stories that the media had already reported and responding to Kitty Kelley's The Family book. I felt like this book was rushed. He didn't go into a lot of explanation and I felt that her childhood along with the governor years were very glossed over. I wanted Mr. Kessler to talk about the librarian/school teacher years of Laura Bush's life. After reading this book, I wanted to feel like I knew her. Instead I feel like I barely scratched the surface. Some of that may be that Laura Bush is a private person. I don't know. I just had higher expectations after reading some Mr. Kessler's other books and he didn't not fulfill my expectations.

Kessler is a veteran journalist who brought down the head of the FBI, he penetrates even the most secret agencies in our country. Now he turns his attention to the first lady and we can finally get to know her in the most personal way.

This book was full of great little stories about everyday life in the Bush household. It was a great reminder that even the president and first wife have silly little names for each other and tragedy in their lives. The book was full of intriguing little stories about Laura Bush that made it a quick read.

However, even as a Bush supporter, I found there to be a few too many plugs for George Bush in there. At times, several paragraphs were devoted to George and I began wondering whose biography this really was. The author presented these plugs as comparisons with the Clintons or Kerrys, but they were obvious jabs at the others. It seemed a little childish and, in my opinion, the author did not disguise it very well. When you start making purposeful and not-so-discreet comments about Hilary Clinton or Teresa Heinz, you begin wondering as a reader how bias the author is in writing this "biography". At times it seemed like an opinion column in the paper.

BUT, it was still a great read- enough so that I am now reading the author's book on George Bush.

I got this book at the library because it was the only biography of Laura Bush that my branch had. Reading through it, I thought it must have been mis-cataloged, because it appears to be written for a Young Adult reader, but checking the publication information, it appears to have been intended for an adult audience. My confusion was understandable given that this book repeatedly assumes no prior knowledge of basic reality prior to about 1995, by multiple instances of including information such as that there was no Internet back in the 1960s when Mrs. Bush was in high school and that the south was segregated. After referring many dozens of times to one of Mrs. Bush's friends, he inserts a note as to how her name is pronounced, seemingly apropos of nothing. The information of the book is extremely thin and spread out between pages of vacuous insights of the fact that Mrs. Bush's friends like her and speak highly of her. I hope for Mr.Kessler's sake that he did not actually write this book and the poor quality of the writing is the fault of his writing "assistant"/ghostwriter. I guess the editors of the Broadway Publishing firm were not worried about the target audience of readers seeing this work as a poor reflection on them.

With his usual attention to the everyday details that really paint the picture of his subject, Kessler delivers a flattering and interesting portrayal of the extremely likeable Laura Bush. How refreshing to read about someone on the national scene who isn't driven by ego and attention seeking! Don't miss this one.

I admire Laura Bush and enjoyed learning more about her. But I appreciate authors who can provide some objectivity. This one falls all over his subject rather than providing a sophisticated eye. Laura herself is very diplomatic and more non-judgmental than most of us. But the author betrays the spirit of the First Lady with his pot shots at others, particularly the Clintons. It's almost as if he wrote the book to state his own opinions rather than to state hers. He is politically naive and less than a stellar writer. His transitions from one topic to another are very weak. Read this book if you want to learn more about Laura but don't waste your time if you are looking for a well-written piece.

Ronald Kessler should be embarrassed to have written this book about Laura Bush because he comes off as a boot-licking lackey with a grudge against the Clintons. Laura Bush is an interesting enough figure that Kessler could have written a thorough biography with all of the access that he was given to her friends and family - access that he makes sure to mention repeatedly. Instead, he chose to write about Mrs. Bush as though she were a saint and makes many snide observations about Hillary Clinton. Mrs. Clinton has her own biography and didn't need to be the focus of this one. Some of the more egregious mentions occur when Kessler quotes some of the White House staff as saying that the Clintons were mean and didn't even know their names. And Kessler also recounts how Mrs. Clinton supposedly fired an usher for returning Barbara Bush's calls and the man was unable to find a job for a year. He also mentioned how the Clintons "paraded" Vernon Jordan around whereas the Bush family preferred to keep their friendships private.

Laura Bush is a former librarian who taught in inner city schools, and unlike many in her generation, she did not get married until she was in her thirties. Surely Mr. Kessler could have spent more time on this aspect of her life and done less Clinton-bashing.

Further, the book is poorly written and organized particularly in the latter half where the author seems like he is just trying to recount as many stories as possible no matter whether they fit in with what he was writing about at the time. And whenever he mentions a Bush gathering, he lists everyone who was present with first and last names. It was just tedious.

I borrowed this book from the library, so at least I'm not out of any money, but I feel for anyone who paid to read this drivel.

I did appreciate learning a little more about Mrs. Bush through this book, but was disappointed by the lack of political information and by the occasional slamming of former First Families. I didn't feel like I knew that much more after reading it than I did before because the author seemed to focus completely on her every virtue, with no mention of anything else, so there was no full picture to it.