The reviews are in: Ivanka Trumpâs new book is âvapidâ at worst, âearnestâ at best, and âa strawberry milkshake of inspirational quotesâ somewhere in between.
Women Who Work: Rewriting the Rules for Success went on sale Tuesday and seemed to immediately incite criticism from all corners of the internet. Trump has explained that the book is meant to âinspire you to redefine success and architect a life that honors your individual passions and priorities.â However, the self-help disquisition has been described in noticeably harsher terms in the book reviews that have come out since its release.
Take, for example, The New York Timesâ Jennifer Senior, who indeed described the book as âa strawberry milkshake of inspirational quotesâ âperfect for a generation weaned on Pinterest and goop.com,â adding:
Self-actualization is the all-consuming preoccupation of âWomen Who Work.â In this way, the book is not really offensive so much as witlessly derivative, endlessly recapitulating the wisdom of other, canonical self-help and business books â by Stephen Covey, Simon Sinek, Shawn Achor, Adam Grant. (Profiting handsomely off the hard work of others appears to be a signature Trumpian trait.) For a while, it reads like the best valedictorian speech ever.
Business Insiderâs Kate Taylor agrees, at least when it comes to Trumpâs penchant for regurgitating other peopleâs advice.
The book [...] reads like a mashup of countless essays and articles written in the past decade aimed at female entrepreneurs.
That isnât to say all the advice is bad â itâs just that little is new. The book borrows heavily from books like Sheryl Sandbergâs âLean In,â Joanna Barsh and Susie Cranstonâs âHow Remarkable Women Lead,â and backlogs of IvankaTrump.com.
So does NPRâs Danielle Kurtzleben:
Often, the melange of quotes and how-to lists give the book more the aesthetic of a Pinterest board than a career guide.
In a review for Slate, Michelle Goldberg focused more on Trumpâs often unchecked privilege, summarizing the book as âa celebration of the unlimited possibilities open to working women when they have full-time household helpâ that âexploits and cheapens feminism.â
The review really picks up around the second use of the word âvapidâ:
As vapid as Women Who Work is â and it is really vapid â there is a subtle political current running through it, one that helps explains how the socially liberal Ivanka can work for her misogynist ogre of a father. Beneath the inspirational quotes from Oprah and the Dalai Lama and the you-go-girl cheerleading, the message of Women Who Work is that people get what they deserve.
[...]
Her worldview, it turns out, is not so different from her fatherâs. Both see society through the lens of quasi-mystical corporate self-help, the sort pioneered by Norman Vincent Peale, author of The Power of Positive Thinking and a major influence on Donald Trump. In their schema, success is proof of virtue and people are to blame for their own misfortune. If Ivanka Trump hasnât expressed any outrage at the cruelties her father is inflicting on the poor and vulnerable, it may well be because she doesnât feel any.
HuffPostâs own Emily Peck similarly remarked upon the First Daughterâs inability to ârealize just how much being wealthy, white and famous helped her out in life.â
Trumpâs book, written before the election but published Tuesday, is a grab-bag of generic work-life advice for upper-middle-class white women who need to âarchitectâ (a verb that pops up a lot) their lives. But underneath that, and perhaps more remarkable, is Trumpâs inability to truly recognize how her own privileged upbringing was key to her success.
Even Boston Globeâs Beth Teitellâs tongue-in-cheek appraisal speaks volumes:
Ivankaâs life seems pretty smooth, but in her book she reveals struggles, like the time Anna Wintour heard that she was about to graduate from college and called out of the blue with a job offer, a challenge familiar to many aspiring writers.
Ultimately, under the headline âWe read Ivanka Trumpâs insufferable new book so you donât have to,â Mashableâs Chris Taylor packaged all the complaints into one succinct sentence:
Here is proof that a female CEO can write a business book that is just as bad â just as padded with bromides and widely-known examples and self-promotion and unexamined privilege and jargon â as one written by an overconfident male CEO.
Some reviews have, of course, been less critical. Meera Jagannathan described the book as âan earnest (if sometimes unrelatable) treatise on work-life balance, motherhood and workplace empowermentâ in The New York Daily News.
The Associated Press apparently enjoyed the bookâs earnestness as well: ââWomen Who Work: Rewriting the Rules for Successâ offers earnest advice for women on advancing in the workplace, balancing family and professional life and seeking personal fulfilment,â the review reads.
In fact, âearnestâ must be the euphemism of the week â Maya Oppenheim noted the bookâs âsomewhat earnest toneâ in The Independent, too.
Women Who Work currently boasts three out five stars on Goodreads, with only two written reviews submitted so far. Itâs faring slightly worse on Amazon, earning only two and a half stars (out of five) from reader reviews there.
Book world ire is hardly new for Trump, though. Just last month, a horde of social media-savvy librarians schooled the author after her tone-deaf #NationalLibraryWeek tweet. Itâs hard to believe theyâll be stocking her books on shelves anytime soon.