First Women: The Grace and Power of America's Modern First Ladies Hardcover – Illustrated, 5 May 2016

Well written and interesting , gives a fascinating insight into the lives of these woman who form an exclusive club .

I found this book rather confusing, instead of devoting a chapter to each First Lady, it tends to jump about from one to the other. So I didn’t particularly enjoy this book

Brilliant book. Very enjoyable and insightful. Will go on to read more American historical biographies. Betty fords is a priority

Amazing read. Full of details of the wonderful first ladies I didn't know before.

The book finished at 78 per cent. The remainder being taken up by acknowledgment and bibliography.Given the author purports to have such good source material I am amazed that she was unable to make better use of it and write a more interesting book. An author to avoid in the future.

I enjoyed this book about the recent first ladies. It was informative and also gave an insight into some of the disasters that American Presidents have faced in the last fifty years-namely the assassination of JFK, 9/11 The Vietnam War, and the various attempts that have been made to kill the American Presidents. At times there seemed to be repetition of what had been written before, and nearly all the information was hearsay, but nonetheless it was a good read, and encouraged me to read some of the autobiographies that the individual First Ladies have written.Definitely a good overview of American events over the last fifty years.

I have read the author’s other book ‘The Residents’ and have nearly finished this one. Both are easy to read and do have some interesting parts, providing an insight into the runnings of The White House and the First Ladies. There is some repetition across the books although that is understandable as the sources of information are the same.However I didn’t find the flow of this book logical. I would have personally found it more logical to have a chapter per First Lady which would have provided a more rounded and comprehensive account of each one. It could then have looked at the relationships between them and give an insight into the elite group that they form. Instead of this the book seemed to jump around in a random order and was not balanced in terms of the amount of content per First Lady.Most frustrating of all though was that it was not balanced in terms of the presentation of each First Lady which does each one of them a disservice. The author appears to favour some First Ladies over others. Jackie Kennedy is presented in a glowing light whereas content on Michelle Obama is mainly critical, based on gossip NOT facts. I have read multiple reputable biographies on Jackie Kennedy and all write on her largely disinterest in being First Lady however minimal is written about this in this book whereas it is frequently referenced how much Michelle Obama hated every minute. The author should not bring her own evident bias into the book AND base the book on facts not gossip.

I knew very little about US presidents and their wives but having read a biography of Nancy Reagan almost by accident my interest was piqued so I ordered this book. It's a great overview of these women and their relationships. Enjoyable but very light. It gave me a glance at each character and I'll definitely be reading further into most of them but I still really don't know much about them after finishing it. More of an introductory book but I enjoyed it all the same and it's very well written.