MixedThe Washington PostBeller stumbled into the classic rookie mistake: She fell in love with her subject and so could never see her objectively. The result is an effusive, almost worshipful portrait of a modern-day princess, stripped of agency or nuance ... The book is a paean to a doomed goddess instead of a reflective examination of a woman thrust into a life she was unprepared for and ill-equipped to survive.
Joseph Rodota
MixedThe Washington PostThe political consultant has compiled an encyclopedic tome on . . . well, everything one could possibly want to know about the buildings and habitants, and then some. And then even more. For students of Washington’s architectural and social history, there are nuggets to mine. For the average reader, it’s Overkillgate.
Tina Brown
PositiveThe Washington PostThe Vanity Fair Diaries sounds like more fun than it reads ...more a cautionary tale of gilded ambition, a book best saved for a gray winter weekend when the news is too stressful and binge-watching Netflix feels like work ... The legendary editor set out to write a gossipy tell-all about her tenure at Vanity Fair...shares her stories of the very rich and the very famous, tales from 30 years ago that are oddly familiar to a 2018 reader ...has a lot of insider baseball about the politics of Conde Nast, the grind of turning out issues every month, reshoots and sackings and fussy writers...this is a 'diary' in the loosest sense of the term. Her journal entries are clearly edited, the dialogue too exact, the memories too perfect, the insights coincidentally prescient.
