Jack: A Life Like No Other

Rating:
Summary: Worth reading, but definitively not a great book
Review: Geoffrey Perret presents a new look at the life of America's most beloved president; it is also "the first craddle to grave biography" of this intricate personality. While the book is worth reading for those who are looking for a single volume biography of Jack Kennedy, it is definitivley not the definitive life of JFK nor a top work of scholarship. It reads more like a big volume of Biography Magazine or any news weekly than a well written, well researched piece. It will entretain and you will learn something --the history parts are very good-, but it will not earn a place in history as Gilbert's or Jenkins biography of Churchill will do.
Nevertheless you should read this book. It is an easy read, very entretaining and revealing. Jack's sex-adiction, amazing ambition, relation to his imposing father, sense of destiny, will be exposed before your eyes. It makes you wonder about where character in our leaders went since then.

Rating:
Summary: A Good Try
Review: Jack is a nice easy read but one tends to wonder where Perret got some of his ideas or if in fact he got them from anywhere but his own imagination. There are times when Perret seems to make up small insignificant happenings to forshadow the inevitable outcome of his life. That aside, Jack is a good book portraying a President so unique and so different than most ex-Presidents. This would be a good first Kennedy read.

Rating:
Summary: ZZZZZZZZ
Review: Mr. Perret somehow succeeded in writing an incredibly boring book about a man who lived an extrodinary life. The book is also marred by continuous misstatements of fact and poor research. To those looking for a good book on JFK, I advise you to take a look at Nigel Hamilton's "JFK: Reckless Youth" for illumination on his early life, Richard Reeves' "Profile in Power" for a broad look at his presidency, and Arthur Schlessinger Jr.'s "A Thousand Days" for an intimate look at his presidency that also gives you an excellent sense of who he was as a person. "Jack" isn't worth the time.

Rating:
Summary: Good Stuff Here!
Review: The life of Jack Kennedy has been covered countless times in books, magazines and movies. Having made the transformation from assassinated president to tabloid favorite, one wonders if there is anything new to be learned about Kennedy, or if there is anything to be gained by buying Geoffrey Perret's book. If you're at all like me -- a fan of history, an admirer of JFK, but not too swayed by rose colored revisionism -- then this book will prove to be well worth the money. Perret starts at the beginning and fully explores the odd psychological uprbinging Kennedy experienced in a family that was extremely eccentric and neurotic -- quite a far cry from American royalty. He follows Kennedy through his pratfalls as a high school and college student, and laments on the never-ending health problems Kennedy ran into throughout his life. I, for one, never knew that our movie star president was often in a frail and precarious state. By the book's end, you walk away with a new appreciation for all of the complexities of Kennedy's character -- and there enough here to make Freud blink a few times -- and for the truly unique life that he led.