wow. If I could give this ZERO stars I would. It's awful. I read the first 50% and skimmed the rest and even skimming it was painful.

The plot is thin. The characters are completely wooden and unlikeable. The author drifts off into these random flights of fancy and forgets what's going on in the story. You can tell he likes to think of himself as a great and eloquent writer but it all comes off as a teenager who just discovered some big words. He really needed an editor.

Bottom line is that nothing happens. It's not funny, it's not showing me any insight into the "inside baseball" of politics. It's just a pure waste of time.

I think my favorite ridiculous part was when the handsome, good at sports, but peculiar and socially awkward teenaged son of the Republican candidate is deemed too much of an oddball to go to college, so they decide to bring him on the campaign trail. As a reader I'm waiting for this ticking time-bomb to go off and do something crazy and awful -- like buy a gun or sleep with a staffer or something totally dramatic that will derail the campaign. What does he do? He gets mad at a reporter asking his daddy a hard question so he shakes up a pepsi and sprays it on the reporter. Seriously!! That's it??!! How lame!! I guess maybe there is some pushing and shoving too which leaves the reporter "trembling" (and it's a guy!) so stupid!

I can't believe it was published and I can't believe I was dumb enough to buy it!

Stay away! ( )

What a trainwreck. A bad gimmick, with leaden writing, about events which are paltry distortions of facts, boring talking-head characters, lousy political propaganda, and nothing happens. Why do I push myself to suffer through these terrible books when I have 2000 on my to-read list? ( )

O is set during the 2012 Presidential Campaign. While the book does provide some insight in the how the campaign works; it doesn't really give much of an insight into "O". The end seemed a little abrupt, and left me wondering what the purpose for writing the book was. ( )

I gave the book 1/2 star because I couldn't give it negative stars. For me, this thing was a foolish waste of time. I had hoped that the "insider" author would give us some insights into O and who and what he stands for, but you won't find much of that here. If you're reading this book to find out what makes O tick, forget it. What the author has to say is strangely sycophantic, as if he's hoping not to hurt anyone's feelings. The author has O swearing occasionally and smoking 3 cigarettes a day. That's about as much depth is you will find about the man in this book. "The Wife" is MIA, except for a couple of approving mentions. The one thing I found to be hilarious: the author made O a viable candidate for the 2012 election by giving the country a 6% unemployment rate. Even then, the election was up in the air and not looking good for O's team.

What was the point of this book? Why did anonymous write this thing? Honestly, I have no idea. I was annoyed with myself for wasting my time with this book. ( )

What self-respecting political junkie can resist the much-hyped release this week of O: A Presidential Novel (Simon & Schuster, 2011)? The anonymity of its author (with its associated frantic speculation), coupled with the timeliness of its subject matter, make it a must-read for those of us who enjoy following the ins and outs of campaign politics just as closely as others do football (is there a game today?).

The novel is set during the 2012 campaign, which finds President O up against squeaky-clean Republican Tom Morrison, otherwise known as "Terrific Tom." Most of the book is focused on what casual readers will probably see as political inside baseball: ad buys; debate prep; internal campaign dynamics; relations between campaign staff, journalists, and donors - if we can plausibly guess one thing about the author, it's that he (or perhaps she, though after reading the book I doubt it) has been involved or associated with a national campaign in a serious way.

While O the book at times tries to get inside O the man's head, there are no meaningful insights here; in fact, the quasi-psychoanalysis of O seems more like a sort of caricature by a political rival than a serious look into the president's character and mindset. While some of the other characters are much better written and certainly add more to the story, the daily doings of O's campaign manager Cal Regan, young reporter Maddy Cohan (shades of House of Cards?), even Republican candidate Morrison and the somewhat mild villain of the piece--a big donor with a leak to peddle--simply can't carry forward a book that doesn't have a particularly exciting story to tell.

There's certainly some potential, but unfortunately the entire Republican nominating process is condensed into a few paragraphs (with a brief but unsatisfactory cameo by "The Barracuda"), and the main plot-line is far too inside-the-Beltway (not to mention just plain uninteresting) to appeal to a general audience (personally, I happened to enjoy it, but hey, I look forward to Mike Allen's "Playbook" every morning).The writing seemed just a bit strained to me, as if the author weren't used to composing dialogue and pacing a story.

I suspect we'll probably know soon enough who wrote it, if folks are inspired enough to track the author down and get him to confess. For now, if you're looking for a fast read with lots of political details, or if you're out to solve this season's major authorship mystery, O's the book for you.

http://philobiblos.blogspot.com/2011/01/book-review-o-presidential-novel.html ( )