Unhinged

In short, you don’t really need to read Unhinged, which recalls Carrie Bradshaw bloviating at her desk at midnight. ('I had to wonder, if Trump used the N-word so frequently during that season of the show, had he ever used it to refer to either Kwame or myself?') Much of the book’s information is mundane, already reported on, or unsubstantiated. The arc turns on an inane semantic argument—that 'there is a difference between being a racist, racial, and someone who racializes'—and the fact that, coincidentally, right around the time Omarosa had to find a new gig, she realized Trump was a racist ... she can’t seem to choose between dressing herself as a bushy-tailed mentee, whose abstracted loyalty precludes her from seeing the misogyny and racism of her 'mentor,' or a savvy career woman, who was willing to play dirty to get ahead ... Opportunism has never morally burdened her, which makes her self-interest seem both egregious and banal. She has clung to her infamy, in part, by perverting the black worker’s experience of racism. She has always exploited the vantage of the pariah, but has more frequently tried to frame herself as a victim.

Now there’s Omarosa’s tell-all: the logical next step in our collective, steep, seemingly endless descent toward disgrace. Above all else, Unhinged is a meta-commentary on the bleakness of our political culture ... It’s useless to review Unhinged as a standalone written product. It’s engineered as a media tool, structured in a fashion that complements what its author says on TV and reveals in a steady stream of recorded semi-bombshells. The book itself reads mostly like the Fire and Fury sequel you never wanted: a swift account of the major events to surround Trump since he began his campaign for president, filled out with one adviser’s observations, opinions, and insider 'knowledge' ... That this is an effort in rebranding is hardly subtle, but Unhinged is not an outrageous retaliation, a disgruntled former staffer’s hyperbolic rantings. It’s the first account by a departed, disgraced Trump White House official—of which there have been many—to actually admit complicity, the abetting of a duplicitous, bigoted administration.

[The playground insults the author says about the President] may be truthful and humorous to some, depending on how many times you can laugh at 'orange-in-chief' or 'cheeto dust' appearing on your timeline. But they don’t present the reader with the sort of confidential information you’d assume close proximity to the most powerful man in the world would yield. For all Omarosa’s methodical scheming, her attempts to solicit support from the same liberal media she was more than happy to antagonize are sloppy and desperate ... When Omarosa writes that the discovery of the alleged N-word tape would be the 'last straw' for her, you feel insulted at how brazenly she’s willing to undermine the reader’s intelligence to salvage her own image ... Unhinged fails to depict its author as a brave whistleblower revealing impeachment-worthy secrets on the Trump presidency ... What Unhinged does reveal is Omarosa’s knack for making her ambition, however ugly or severe, as exhilarating to watch as a horror movie.