Cinderella is one of my favorite fairy tales. I love all the various tellings, and the messages that each have. As a child it was a tale that reminded me that there was a light at the end of the tunnel, and it was worth fighting for. The prince was a metaphor for happiness.

This idea, of what happens after the fairy tale, where the town within the story is centuries after the princess is dead was enthralling. I loved the way the author played with the way that stories can shape our beliefs. How not everything we are told by those in power is true, but many will follow it willing because they either have accepted defeat or have heard it so many times they believe it to be so. But like fire, it just takes a spark of defiance. A single soul to question the truth, and it will ignite a resistance.

This book held many parallels to our current society. They were woven into the story is such a manner that wasn't overbearing, but after reading it, one can't help but feel inspired and stabby.

You'll love this book if you love retellings, fairy tales within fairy tales, and books with happy endings. While it's YA, and the MC makes some of those dreadful YA choices, it did not feel like the typical YA.

Note: LGBT Characters, Own Voice ( )

A well-done book, but not my kinda book. Long, exhaustive history of Republican Party politics for the last 10 years or so, but mostly about DJT and his relationship with other Republicans. I learned a lot certainly, but it involved wallowing in a lot of history I didn’t like watching at the time and It wasn’t any better reviewing in hindsight either. One thing I liked about the book is that the author is a conservative himself, just not a wacko, so it was good to get an insider perspective (although Albertson’s a journalist not a politician).

Political junkies, have fun with this book. ( )

If you read the newspapers or keep up with the news, the contents of this book will not surprise you. However, the longer you read the book, the more you will feel despair, grow angry and feel depressed. Truth be told I have no respect for about 95% of members of the Republican party and about 100% of Republican members of Congress. There was some attempt at sanity by various people like John Boehner, John McCain and Paul Ryan to reign in some of the insanity from members of the hard Right, evangelicals and tea party members.

Regrettably the Republican Party, especially with Trump, have given in to their basic instincts – – – – racism, nationalism, fear of change etc. You will read countless examples of where narrow self interests particularly those of the Rich are pushed against the interests of the middle class and general populace.

The party of Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush is dead. Alberta’s book provides the timeline and autopsy results of the death of the Republican party. It's now Trump's party. Vestiges of civility, compassion and good judgment have been stamped out. Alberta's book shows that Trump had many willing accomplices ready and willing to sell their souls and sell out the interests of this country. ( )

shitty ( )

Though the title is taken from Donald Trump’s 2017 inaugural address, this book is about more than just the 45th president of the United States and his impact on the Republican Party. Instead what Tim Alberta provides is a Washington-eye view of the evolution of the national GOP from the 2008 election to the midway point of Trump’s presidency. A longtime political reporter, Alberta draws upon a wealth of interviews with many of the key Republicans in Congress, featuring them as they key figures in their party’s evolution from the pro-immigration supporters of free trade and fiscal restraint into the more nativist, protectionist, and xenophobic party they have become since 2016.

As Alberta demonstrates, the factors that led to this transformation were present well before Trump announced his candidacy for the presidency. By the end of George W. Bush’s presidency Congressional Republicans faced a lot of internal discontent with their deficit spending habits and the costs of two interminable wars in the Middle East, to which was added the onset of a severe recession. With Barack Obama’s victory over John McCain in 2008, Republican leaders feared they might be politically marginalized for the next generation. Even in the afterglow of Obama’s victory, though, his team recognized that they would likely face a backlash because of the dismal economic conditions and the hard choices before them.

That backlash was the Tea Party movement. Its energy translated into Republican victories up and down the ballot in the midterm election. Yet even as Republicans benefited electorally from public dissatisfaction with Obama’s administration, Alberta notes the emerging tension between the party leadership and the new members of the caucus, many of whom rode to victory on the basis of this dissatisfaction. The new House Speaker, John Boehner, bore the brunt of this conflict, as the more radicalized members of his majority often pressed for actions that Boehner (who at one time was considered on the extreme wing of the House Republican caucus) resisted as pointless. Such extremism proved counter-productive in the Senate races that year, as Alberta notes how the selection of the more radical candidates cost the Republicans winnable races that would have given them unified control of Congress.

This tension only grew over the next six years, inspiring ambitious Republicans and frustrating legislative achievements. With Obama’s reelection victory in 2012, many within the party worried that they were on an electorally unsustainable course that would prove disastrous. Three years later the Republicans had a primary field notable for its considerable diversity, yet in the end what the base desired most was not ideological extremism or detailed conservative proposals, but someone who tapped into their cultural anxieties. Enter Donald Trump, whose often outrageous rhetoric and media savvy combined to win the nomination over a number of prominent party figures. Though many Republican officeholders blanched at his statements, his unexpected victory cuffed them to a mercurial figure who demanded total loyalty and who was even willing to sacrifice political power to get it.

Drawing as he does from conversations with many of the key individuals involved, Alberta offers an insider’s account of a decade’s worth of American politics. As perceptive of much of his analysis is, though, Alberta’s book suffers from some unfortunate limitations. These are a consequence of his “inside the Beltway” focus, with little consideration of developments at the state and the local level. With only a marginal effort made to unpack the dynamics that often drove many of the events he describes, the Congressional maneuvering and political infighting he describes can assume a greater importance than it might otherwise possess. A more expansive coverage might have made for a stronger book, albeit perhaps a less readable one. For with its mixture of reporting and retrospective commentary, Alberta’s book serves as a compulsively readable record of an important moment in the history of the Republican Party, one the consequences of which continue to ripple outward. ( )