Thorough, compassionate ... A valuable document, sobering where Audition aimed for sassy ... In placing the emphasis on all the rule-breaking Barbara Jill Walters had to do over her long life — she died in 2022 at 93 — the biographer pays respect to a toughness easy to undervalue today.
Entertaining and well-considered ... The Rulebreaker shows that icons don’t sparkle all the time, but reminds us that’s sometimes OK, that judgments can be made on the overwhelming balance of a life’s work rather than by questioning every single move.
Page expertly portrays Walters as an important figure in society, but she also shows what made her human ... A definitive and deeply researched biography.
Authoritative ... While Page rightly lauds Walters’s trailblazing accomplishments, she’s clear-eyed about her subject’s shortcomings ... Incisive and evenhanded, this is a triumph.
