The Art of Her Deal

The Untold Story of Melania Trump

By: Mary Jordan

Narrated by: Mary Jordan

In this “scrupulously reported biography” (NPR) Jordan documents how Melania Trump had discussing being First Lady nearly two decades before she landed in the White House and how she encouraged her husband to enter the race for president.

Based on interviews with more than one hundred people in five countries, The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump is “an extraordinary work” (Salon) that draws an unprecedented portrait of the first lady. We see that behind the scenes Melania Trump is not only part of President Trump’s inner circle, but for some key decisions she has been his single most influential advisor.

Jordan interviewed key people in Melania's close circle who speak publicly for the first time and uncovered never-before-seen photos and tapes of the tall woman with “tiger eyes,” as a judge in an early modeling contest said. The Art of Her Deal shows Melania’s ascent from a modest life, tracing her journey from childhood under a communist dictator to her complicated relationship with Donald Trump. The picture that emerges is “that the first lady is not a pawn but a player...and a woman able to get what she wants from one of the most powerful and transparently vain men in the world” (NPR).

And while it is her husband who became famous for the phrase “the art of the deal,” this is the story of the art of her deal.

©2020 Mary Jordan. All rights reserved. (P)2020 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

No Way Can Trump Deny the Stories in This Book ...

I will amend this review to include more details once I have fully completed the book. However, in the meantime I have heard that Trump and his associates have denied this book as the usual “fake news” etc Of course they have!!

The information contained in this book and related by the author seem very real, truthful and valid to me. I believe the book relates the sad truths of “Trump world” and clearly cites the claims being made, who has made each claim, and how each event or story was confirmed by the author.

While some of the incidents included may seem far fetched, I believe they are true.

In my opinion, the author meets the threshold of sourcing the information found in this book and clearly outlines how she spoke to multiple people to confirm each event or story.

I am admittedly not a Donald Trump fan - but the enigmatic Melania has interested me for a long time. This book helps to peel away the veneer she has gladly, and wittingly participated in building both before entering the White House, and now as Trump completes his first (hopefully final) term of office. Melania seems very different than the “average” Trump but I believe Melania fits very well into the Trump circus. She is certainly no “victim” of anyone but herself and the Trump family she sought to be a part of.

While every family has their own eccentricities, the Trump family and their associates seem to have FAR more than any “normal” family. I didn’t find much of anything that most of us would find normal about Melania’s life, but I don’t believe she would ever want to be “mixed in” or be compared to the rest of us normal folk. Normalcy hardly seems to be her goal.

I don’t personally believe you could or would want to be part of Trump-world if you were seeking normalcy! I definitely think she has her own agenda while existing within the family as a whole. They all seem so individually narcissistic that they barely notice the extremes of one another!

As far as the narration, I have listened to far worse and much better. I can’t quite name it (yet), but there is something mildly taxing about my continuing with the narration of this book. I generally have come to think that authors do themselves a disservice when they narrate their own books. It seems that this conclusion holds up and continues here (for me).


Overall, I am very glad I purchased this book. It is a fascinating inside look into Melania Trump and the path and world she has chosen. The money must be nice, but I prefer my comparatively modest existence to the bizarre world the Trump family occupies.

A very well sourced book that absolutely held my interest. I don’t feel sorry for Melania,, as any woman can choose whether to stay in a marriage that includes cheating (adulterous and ALL cheating), etc. I personally would not find the perks to outweigh the obvious humiliation and downsides required. Simply put, Melania is a “big girl” and must find that the good parts of her marriage outweigh the bad?

I would last in Melania’s world for less than 24 hours - I could never stand being around Donald & Company for even that short a period. NO THANKS !!!

If I feel bad for anyone, it would be Barron. It will be very interesting to watch him as he approaches and enters his adult years.and beyond. I think most of us are rooting for him....!!

Great story

So thorough and very eye opening. I would recommend this book and also the author speaks eloquently and unbiased.

Atory about a Relic

I need to atop wasting my life in this family. Just more confirmation of how out of touch and fraudulent they are.

Didn't learn much

The narration was quite good, but the content lacked real insight into Melania's character and life. Although it's not really possible, I feel I know less about Melania now than I did before listening to this book. The few snippets of "new info" in the book could have made for a short profile article. I recently listened to a biography of Shakespeare, in which the author continually noted how little is known about the Bard as an apology for the lack of content. This experience is not dissimilar.

Biased and one sided

I’m guessing the author did not have access to
most people who did not have a beef with Trump, so it’s no surprise that much of the emphasis was on the negative side of every story, and her scornful interpretation (she narrates her own book) gives evidence of her own attitude.
This becomes more evident toward the end of the book.
On the other hand, it does provide factual details, that if viewed without judgment, create an interesting picture of the First Lady.
I am glad I listened to the entire thing, even though it required a generous application of salt.

Melania Trump

I was expecting a less bias look into the First Lady’s life. I admire the fact that she came from a Slavic country and decided her goals in life as a young person. I admire her strength to withstand the critics, even the author of this book. I feel too much time was spent bashing President Trump. Melania knew exactly what she was getting into and handles it admirably. She should never be compared to Hiliary or Michele Obama. Two women Melina definitely out classes. Be very open minded when you read this book. It is very disappointing probably because Mary Jordan couldn’t get enough information so she guessed and then directed her words at Trump.

Meh

Not too much new or very interesting here. Melania is a lot like her husband but quieter & less flamboyant. Like him, she uses people &, once she’s gotten what she wants from them, they don’t hear from her again. This should’ve been a magazine article. Instead it was stretched into a book which made it kind of boring. The

Surprisingly great!

I enjoyed this book very much. I feel it was honest and engaging. It gave me a little insight to a powerful woman I respect. Sometimes it got a bit boring but I will read it again.

it was very bias

So when I started reading it, I thought it was gonna be a book about melania, because I think she's very interesting and quiet. but I realized as I began listening that this author had an agenda. on the very first chapter, I almost cut it off. Because I didn't want to hear about her opinion on President Trump or anybody else. I just thought she was going to write about melania. But I decided to go ahead and keep listening. Once she hit chapter 2, it got a little better, I started to actually enjoy the book and it stayed really good through the middle. But then when you get towards the end, once again, it gets pretty bad about attacking. And talking about trump, and I just didn't see why she had to bring him into it when this is just about melania. And I could say, Hey, maybe she's with Trump, so that's why she has to say all this stuff, but the thing is she talked about Michelle and Barack Obama and she made them sound really good. She also talked about Hillary Clinton, and she made her sound Okay, so that's why you know it's more slanted, than it is middle of the road. Especially when she said something about Michelle Obama said that Trump was going to make people who are crazy and carrying guns. Come to the White House and wanna shoot her children. It's so funny because two attempts were on trump's life, but that was probably after her writing this book, it's just ironic.That's all. So I gave her 4 stars because I did enjoy listening about Melania, but I would have given her 2 stars because of the biased nature I chose not to be biased. I chose to be someone who is more open minded, and just realized I read a biased book. and i gave her 4 undeserving stars lol

Loved this Book

This book was wonderful.. The narrator did a fabulous job with telling the story about Malania Trump's life from the beginning.