JoAnn Hallum's Reviews > Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty

Probably the worst book I’ve read so far this year. The writing was boring, clunky, and often irrelevant. The plot (aka the life of the Vanderbilts) was often derailed by the most ridiculous things: New York when it was New Amsterdam, Truman Capote, etc.
The author seemed uncomfortable with any semblance of personal revelation from the beginning, which was drilled home when he finally got to the topic of his own existence and kept it in the third person.
I could have googled the Vanderbilts and learned everything in this book with less time and less annoying word structure. I am not being dramatic when I say it was terrible, to the point where I felt sorry for the author. How did this get good reviews? The one redeeming point was discovering the cat costume of the Vanderbilt ball of 1883. I had to google a photo of it or course, because despite pages of descriptions of ball gowns, no one thought it was important to include photos in this book.