All I want is a man with a little imagination. Is that too much to ask?

So Jacqueline got a man with a WIDE imagination and her decision to marry him turned her life in a completely different direction. I liked reading about her very much. I knew almost nothing about her so I learned a lot. I googled often to know more about that times, different personalities, to see her in all those clothes described.

I was astounded by her inner power, by her strong love towards Jack, and by her willingness to make the world a better place. While I was reading the book, I felt all her disappointments, fears, and pain by myself. The author did a really good job delivering Jackie's state of mind and her point of view on different things.

I absolutely loved reading this novel. So I think I'll continue to improve my knowledge of some women in history with Stephanie Thornton. ( )

I really enjoyed this fictional biography. Jack and Jackie were so much a part of my coming of age, and the 1960s will always be more vivid because of them. The author did a good job of making them real while keeping the facts close to what we remember. to this day, most people know exactly where they were as they events played out.

Few of us can claim to be the authors of our fate. Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy knows no other choice. With the eyes of the world watching, Jackie uses her effortless charm and keen intelligence to carve a place for herself among the men of history and weave a fairy tale for the American people, embodying a senator’s wife, a devoted mother, a First Lady—a queen in her own right.

But all reigns must come to an end. Once JFK travels to Dallas and the clock ticks down those thousand days of magic in Camelot, Jackie is forced to pick up the ruined fragments of her life and forge herself into a new identity that is all her own, that of an American legend. ( )

A beautifully written novel of the life and heartbreak of Jackie Kennedy. You will feel her joy and her pain. This is a great book.
* Great Character Development
* Could Not Put it Down
( )

True survivor. What a wonderful book. Told in the narrative of Jackie herself you will experience every bit of her happiness, heartaches, triumphs and disappointments. You will come to know and understand the woman she was. A terrific and must read. ( )

I have read so many biographies of Jack and Jackie Kennedy, including only recently Those Few Precious Days and The Fabulous Bouvier Sisters, that I couldn't resist this fictionalised account of Jackie's life. Unfortunately, I didn't read the subtitle and was expecting the story to end with Jack's death, which to be honest, might have made for a better read. But for the most part, I loved reading about familiar events, from the Kennedy wedding to the White House and the assassination, told in 'Jackie's voice. The rest - Jackie's relationship with Bobby, his death, her marriage to Onassis, saving Grand Central, her work in publishing - just didn't have the same personality as her life with Jack and felt like a writing exercise in places.

Ho boy, but those chapters about Jack and Jackie are beautifully told - honest (no shying away from Jack's dalliances), but also romantic and definitely written with a love for the leading characters (even if the author did admit to wanting to travel back in time and slap Jack for cheating on Jackie!)

The room’s sudden electricity raised the hair on the back of my neck as a tanned man with a mop of sandy-brown hair and a smile more powerful than an atomic bomb blast returned the wave.

I have long had a mad crush on Jack Kennedy, so descriptions like this, told from the lovestruck Jackie's perspective, kept me glued to my Kindle. Even her little character studies are addictive, from his curiosity ("So many men just wanted to talk about themselves, but Jack? He wanted to learn and know everything, so I sometimes teased that if I was to sketch him I’d draw a tiny body with an enormous head") to the emotional walls he built around himself ("It felt as if he was shuttering something away after the wedding, as if he needed to keep some integral part of himself separate from me"). His near death after an operation on his spine and his tears after learning the truth about the Bay of Pigs had my heart in my throat, even though I must have read all this many times before. Not to mention the 'foreshadowing' of his demise: “Jack’s never done anything quietly. You’ll know when he goes," Bobby tells Jackie). The power of fiction!

Jackie does come to her senses and grow a spine, especially when Jack refuses to come home after their baby daughter is born dead, and I admire that the author made Jackie an active force in her life story, but some of her plans to deal with Jack's cheating and become the power behind the throne felt a little forced when told in first person. I'm not sure Jackie went through life plotting world domination, she just learned to survive whatever Jack and fate threw at her, because she loved him and for her own complicated reasons.

The author admits in her notes where she chose to manipulate dates and names for dramatic purposes, so this isn't exactly like reading a biography in fictional form. There is a lot of subjective interpretation, mostly positive. Readers new to the Kennedys might not even notice where the author steps off the beaten path, or where she occasionally sounds like a Wikipedia article with dialogue. For me, this was a novel of two halves, however - I loved, absolutely craved, the retelling of Jack and Jackie's ill-fated romance, but felt the story should have ended with 'Camelot'. ( )