I received this book for free from the library in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Source: the library
Too Much and Never Enough
by
Mary L. Trump
biography in a hardcover edition that was published by Simon and Schuster on July 14, 2020 and has 225 pages.
Explore it on Goodreads or Amazon
A standalone biography about our current president, Donald Trump, and the family forces that created him.
My Take
It’s a reasonably fast read, although it does bog down a lot with all the repetition about how awful Donald is and how he got that way. I had to push myself to keep reading. In fact, you may want to explore one of the many “summary” books that are out there instead.
It’s probably not fair to say the point-of-view is that of the unreliable narrator — which could probably be combined with the naive. Lord knows Mary, her brother, and her father, Donald’s brother, were all naive when it came to finances. Well, the whole family really. It was Fred, the father (Mary’s grandfather), who actually made the money. All the rest of them seem to have been good only for spending it.
I do feel sorry for them all — but I wouldn’t want any of them as friends! That Fred sounds like a real piece of work and reinforces my wish that people had to get licensed to have children. His wife doesn’t sound much better.
Mary does provide an excuse for why Donald is the way he is, why he is so very broken. It’s too bad he’s not smart enough or adult enough to fix himself. This account does bear out what I’ve heard over the decades about the Donald. Sad. And so pathetic.
Of course, the whole family sounds like they need help. Major, major help.
The Cover and Title
The cover has the appearance of a newspaper photograph of a young Donald Trump’s head. Who knew? He was actually cute. All the text is embossed with the author’s name at the very top in an orangish burgundy, including her PhD. A double rule separates her name from the primary title which is in black with another double rule separating it from the subtitle, which is also in the burgundy.
The title is too true and applies to the entire Trump family, for nothing, everything, is Too Much and Never Enough.
