The reviews are in, and critics are mostly pleased with Mary Trump’s book.
Too Much and Never Enough, written by President Trump's niece, has garnered not only headlines but largely positive reviews from book critics.
In the book, Mary Trump, daughter of President Trump’s late brother, describes the dynamics in the “malignantly dysfunctional family” once headed by her grandfather, Fred Trump Sr., who died in 1999. The author, a clinical psychologist, labels the Trump patriarch a “high-functioning sociopath.”
A reviewer for Kirkus was impressed with the book, describing it as “dripping with snideness, vibrating with rage, and gleaming with clarity—a deeply satisfying read.”
At the New York Times, Jennifer Szalai wrote that the book has “an undeniable power,” and notes that “Mary, who was also a graduate student of comparative literature, knows how to tell a story and choose an anecdote.”
Carlos Lozada of the Washington Post agreed, calling the book “a deftly written account of cross-generational trauma, but it is also suffused by an almost desperate sadness—sadness in the stories it tells and sadness in the telling, too.”
At the London Times, critic Josh Glancy was a bit more measured, writing that the book was both “mesmerizing and excruciating. It strays too far into politics, on which the author is neither authoritative nor interesting. It has a bitter, naked agenda and the weeping sores left by Mary Trump’s childhood make her a deeply unreliable narrator.”
Readers will soon get the chance to decide for themselves. Too Much and Never Enough, which as of Monday morning was the No. 1 bestselling book at Amazon and Barnes Noble, is set for publication on Tuesday.
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
