Good Evening,

Hope you’re all doing well and either recovering from a heavy weekend of bank holiday sunshine or from a busy first day back at work today. I didn’t have either of these yet still found myself tired all day. I think it’s mostly down to spending nearly all of yesterday out in the sun, jet washing patios and cars. It was worth it though, I had a lovely and very productive bank holiday Monday.

Book 📖

I am due to read the second Bill Clinton and James Patterson book for an ARC review so in true Sarah fashion, I wanted to read this one first. My partner actually had the hardback of The President is Missing lying around from a holiday we took a couple of years ago so I got to read this on real paper, with real pages and everything.

Description 🔖

The United States of America is under threat, but nobody knows exactly from what and when this threat could turn into a disaster. There is talk of cyberterror and fingers are being pointed as widespread as America’s enemies to within the President’s closest circle. In fact, the President himself is being pressured and impeachment is on the table. However, it is difficult to impeach a president who is missing.

General Thoughts 🤔

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I wasn’t by any means expecting it to be the most complicated and edge of your seat thriller I’ve ever read but the reviews I had seen for it left a lot to be desired. I have to strongly disagree with some of the bad reviews. I enjoyed this book and I enjoyed the story. I can’t say that I was hooked to the point of not being able to concentrate on anything else, but I was definitely hooked and I wanted to finish it and see what happened.

I think you have to go into this book with an open mind and be willing to just let yourself get swept away in an against the clock story. It’s what I did and I really did enjoy it. I’d compare it to a Netflix series that I can’t not finish and that I know I can put on in the background and enjoy; and I mean that in the most positive way!

Characters 👬👭👫

I think I would be silly to not mention the elephant in the room that this book is about a fictional President, written by a real ex-President. I wonder how much of Bill Clinton is written into President Duncan. I actually quite liked his character. I enjoyed his process when making difficult decisions; whether or not they went along with or against his advisors. I know it’s not necessarily part of the story line but I would have liked to have read more about his personal background so that I could have gotten more insight into what he was like as a person, rather than just a President.

Augie was probably my favourite character in the book. I thought that he was the most genuine person in the whole story and that when push came to shove, he wanted to do the right thing. I also enjoyed the relationship between Augie and the President, even when it wasn’t such a positive one.

Writing Style ✍️

As I have alluded to above, The President is Missing is labelled as a thriller, but it’s probably a bit watery for a thriller. It’s kind of more like a mass market action movie with a few plot twists thrown in. BUT. As long as you know that’s what you’re going in for, then it’s enjoyable.

The entire book is told in real-time across three days which I really liked. It put into context how quickly things can move and change under such pressure and when you have so much power.

Conclusion & Scoring 🎖

I thought that this was a really fun read and I would recommend it for sure. I don’t really know what I was expecting from a fiction book written by Bill Clinton (albeit alongside James Patterson) but I think I can say that my expectations were exceeded. I’ll be moving on to The President’s Daughter straight after this and I’m looking forward to it.

😍😍😍😩😩