FEBRUARY 2018 - AudioFile
Reporter Katy Tur’s increasing disbelief is crystal clear in her narration of her memoir about covering the Trump presidential campaign for NBC. Trump singles her out at campaign events, calling her a liar and “little Katy.” Occasionally, she gets spat on, or she must be accompanied by security out of a rally. The job is a grind, too. She runs from plane to rally to hotel room and repeats it all the next day. As a reporter, she must keep up with each tweet; as a female reporter, she must keep up her appearance and not wear the same outfit twice. The sheer effort needed for all of it is palpable in Tur's performance. Amid her recollections, Tur makes a heartfelt appeal for the importance of truth and an independent media to a democratic system. A.B. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
The New York Times Book Review - Jill Abramson
…Tur's short and breezy campaign memoir is the story of how she soldiered on. It is also the familiar tale of how a relatively inexperienced woman is looked down on and underestimated, both by the candidate she covered and by her network superiors. By the end of Unbelievable it's clear how wrong they all were in thinking they could run over "Little Katy" (Trump's snide name for Tur)…Like a plucky Jean Arthur character in a '30s screwball comedy, Tur evolved into a seasoned campaign reporter and never let Trump get under her skin. Meanwhile, in between the personal blasts—and in a pattern typical of his love/hate relationship with the press—Trump granted her interviews. He hated what reporters wrote about him but he could not exist without their attention. Tur does a good job explaining the dynamics of this weird, symbiotic relationship. The more personal story Tur tells in Unbelievable is also compelling.
Publishers Weekly
09/18/2017
NBC News political journalist Katy Tur offers an entertaining personal account of the nearly two years she spent covering Donald Trump’s rise to the presidency, “the most unlikely, exciting, ugly, trying, and all-around bizarre campaign in American history.” Trump’s presidential run was a surreal experience for many Americans, but for Tur it was also life-changing: she was a relatively unknown London-based foreign correspondent enjoying quiet weekends in Paris and a self-described “political novice" when she got the call to go on the road with Trump in the spring of 2015. “Six weeks, tops,” her bosses told her. Overnight, Tur’s life became a blur of planes, cars, buses, hotel rooms, dry shampoo, bad food, rowdy and often disturbing campaign rallies, and headline-grabbing tweet storms. Some 500 grueling days later, Trump was president—and Tur had emerged as a battle-tested fixture of the NBC News political team. She was a frequent target of Trump’s, who famously nicknamed her “Little Katy” and whipped his crowds into such an antimedia frenzy that she occasionally required a security detail. While Tur recalls many of the campaign’s unusual moments (Trump defending his penis size in a presidential debate; his hawking of steaks and bottled water at a press conference; the Access Hollywood tape) Tur’s narrative is light on political analysis, and it mostly avoids the central question pundits will be exploring for years to come: how did Trump actually win? But Tur's brisk behind-the-scenes account humanizes the press corps, illuminates life on the campaign trail, and delivers on its promise: "I won’t pretend to explain it,” Tur writes, but “I will tell you what I saw.” (Sept.)
From the Publisher
A cross between The Boys on the Bus and Miss Lonelyhearts” — New York Review of Books
“By the end of ‘Unbelievable’ it’s clear how wrong they all were in thinking they could run over “little Katy” (Trump’s snide name for Tur.) This book couldn’t be more timely, appearing as President Trump ratchets up his attacks on the news media….The more personal story Tur tells in “Unbelievable” is also compelling….One more subject that Tur richly examines is the outrageous sexism of Trump and many of his supporters.” — Jill Abramson, New York Times Book Review
“A quick and enjoyable read. . . . The chapters switch between key points in the campaign and Election Day, enhancing the feel of chaos that must have been a big part of covering the Trump campaign.” — Associated Press
“A must-ride roller coaster of a memoir. . . Unbelievable is best read as a reminder that it really did happen that way, we aren’t all crazy, it was that crazy.” — Hugh Hewitt, Washington Post
“A real page-tuner” — Morning Joe
“Tur’s brisk behind-the-scenes account humanizes the press corps, illuminates life on the campaign trail, and delivers on its promise: “I won’t pretend to explain it,” Tur writes, but “I will tell you what I saw.” — Publishers Weekly
“A great behind-the-scenes look about what it takes to have been a campaign correspondent. All presidents, all presidential candidates have had hostile relationships with the press from time to time. This current president has a totally different reaction to the press and a totally different take on press freedom than any president that has ever gone before him. And the person who most personifies his hostility, condescension and aggression toward the press is NBC correspondent Katy Tur.” — Rachel Maddow, The Rachel Maddow Show
“Outstanding” — Jon Favreau, Pod Save America
“One of the most insightful books I’ve ever read.” — Trevor Noah, The Daily Show
“A fascinating play-by-play of what it was like to cover a campaign that was far from ordinary.” — New York Post
“What elevates Unbelievable beyond one more pedestrian campaign memoir is Tur’s skill at capturing the constant indignities of campaign reporting while female, including the worst indignity of all: enduring the fixation of Trump himself.” — Carlos Lozada, Washington Post
“Even after everything we have learned, some of Tur’s behind-the-scenes details remain startling...The razor-sharp observations of [Unbelievable]...are the sort of thing you hear nowadays on The Daily Show or Stephen Colbert’s Late Show and never, ever, on any of the networks’ evening news broadcasts.” — The Guardian
“a quite revealing and powerful book” — The Atlantic
Associated Press
A quick and enjoyable read. . . . The chapters switch between key points in the campaign and Election Day, enhancing the feel of chaos that must have been a big part of covering the Trump campaign.
Trevor Noah
One of the most insightful books I’ve ever read.
Jill Abramson
By the end of ‘Unbelievable’ it’s clear how wrong they all were in thinking they could run over “little Katy” (Trump’s snide name for Tur.) This book couldn’t be more timely, appearing as President Trump ratchets up his attacks on the news media….The more personal story Tur tells in “Unbelievable” is also compelling….One more subject that Tur richly examines is the outrageous sexism of Trump and many of his supporters.
Hugh Hewitt
A must-ride roller coaster of a memoir. . . Unbelievable is best read as a reminder that it really did happen that way, we aren’t all crazy, it was that crazy.
New York Post
A fascinating play-by-play of what it was like to cover a campaign that was far from ordinary.
Morning Joe
A real page-tuner
Jon Favreau
Outstanding
New York Review of Books
A cross between The Boys on the Bus and Miss Lonelyhearts”
The Atlantic
a quite revealing and powerful book
Carlos Lozada
What elevates Unbelievable beyond one more pedestrian campaign memoir is Tur’s skill at capturing the constant indignities of campaign reporting while female, including the worst indignity of all: enduring the fixation of Trump himself.
The Guardian
Even after everything we have learned, some of Tur’s behind-the-scenes details remain startling...The razor-sharp observations of [Unbelievable]...are the sort of thing you hear nowadays on The Daily Show or Stephen Colbert’s Late Show and never, ever, on any of the networks’ evening news broadcasts.
New York Post
A fascinating play-by-play of what it was like to cover a campaign that was far from ordinary.
Associated Press Staff
A quick and enjoyable read. . . . The chapters switch between key points in the campaign and Election Day, enhancing the feel of chaos that must have been a big part of covering the Trump campaign.
The Rachel Maddow Show
A great behind-the-scenes look about what it takes to have been a campaign correspondent. All presidents, all presidential candidates have had hostile relationships with the press from time to time. This current president has a totally different reaction to the press and a totally different take on press freedom than any president that has ever gone before him. And the person who most personifies his hostility, condescension and aggression toward the press is NBC correspondent Katy Tur.
Library Journal
04/01/2017
On the potholed presidential trail during 2015–16, NBC reporter Tur was routinely scorned by Republican candidate Donald Trump, who called her disgraceful, third-rate, and more. During one rally, the atmosphere became so vicious that Tur had to be escorted to her car by the Secret Service. Incensed viewers responded vigorously by tweeting #imwithtur. Here's her ringside view of the campaign. With a 200,000-copy first printing.
FEBRUARY 2018 - AudioFile
Reporter Katy Tur’s increasing disbelief is crystal clear in her narration of her memoir about covering the Trump presidential campaign for NBC. Trump singles her out at campaign events, calling her a liar and “little Katy.” Occasionally, she gets spat on, or she must be accompanied by security out of a rally. The job is a grind, too. She runs from plane to rally to hotel room and repeats it all the next day. As a reporter, she must keep up with each tweet; as a female reporter, she must keep up her appearance and not wear the same outfit twice. The sheer effort needed for all of it is palpable in Tur's performance. Amid her recollections, Tur makes a heartfelt appeal for the importance of truth and an independent media to a democratic system. A.B. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2017-09-12
One of Donald Trump's favorite media targets tells how she attained that distinction in this spry look at the 2016 campaign.NBC News correspondent Tur covered the presidential campaign from the very start, with Trump in her sights for more than 500 grueling days. At the beginning, she writes, she informed the disbelieving hosts of Today that, even after Trump's opening remark that "when Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best," he was polling strongly in bellwether New Hampshire. "Trump wasn't part of anyone's plan," she writes, adding, "for that matter, neither was I." However, Trump managed to tap into a deep well of resentment and anger among disaffected voters who were content to trade in old notions of truth and decency for Trump's wild ride. Trump's own encounters with Tur were just as resentful and angry: he complained that she wouldn't look at him and was distorting words she was quoting verbatim, and she had a special knack for upsetting him. "His rage didn't register in the moment," she writes in a post-mortem of an early encounter. "I thought it was all part of his shtick. The reality show star. But watching his face on-screen, it's clear Trump isn't playing." Still, praise came from the author's colleagues, and even, on occasion, from Trump himself, who grudgingly allowed that Tur was better than most reporters. In Tennessee, "he tried to introduce me to a crowd…a hand on my shoulder like I was his wife." Trump's anger, page after page of it, is discomfiting, and Tur's reactions to it seem to verge on symptoms of PTSD. Even so, her own back-of-the-envelope analyses are borne out by subsequent events, as when she writes, "Trump is crude, and in his halo of crudeness other people get to be crude as well." A thoughtful account of covering what the author rightly calls "the most unlikely, exciting, ugly, trying, and all-around bizarre campaign in American history."
