"Killing Kennedy"-Bill O'Reilly & Martin Dugard

Book Title: Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot
Authors: Bill O'Reilly, Martin Dugard
Version: Hardback
ISBN: 9780805096668
Publisher: Henry Holt & Co.
Published: October 2nd, 2012
Number of Pages: 336
Genre: 'Non-Fic'

REVIEW: If you have ever sat even semi-consciously in a US history class or were born after 1950 you know who John Fitzgerald Kennedy was. He was, in most respects, the hope of a generation. Since the story of who the Kennedy's were and the utter devastation that spread throughout the country when he was assassinated, I felt that I could skip the synopsis part and move straight to my review.

Now I am going to preface this by saying that I am in no way a Kennedy expert, I haven't even done all that much research on them. But I have read a few books about them, and done a bit of research so I know a tiny bit. I am in all honesty morbidly fascinated by the whole Kennedy tragedy. And so because I am curious about all things Kennedy I picked this bestseller up out of pure curiosity. Believe me a lot of people were surprised that I was reading it. Mr. O'Reilly is well known for his now infamous book "Killing Lincoln," which turned out to be a good bit of fiction when it was supposed to be non-fiction. So when I told people that I was reading "Killing Kennedy" I got a lot of raised eyebrows in response. But I was curious, I couldn't help it.

This was an excellent piece of humor. I laughed for a good chunk of it. The problem with that? This wasn't supposed to be funny in any way. But I ended up laughing so hard at some points that I had tears in my eyes and my roommate had to ask if I was doing ok. The thing with this is was it wasn't written well at all and the laughter was from what was said rather than how it was said. Again this wasn't supposed to be a funny book. As an example he went on and on about how many affairs Kennedy had. Sure we know that Kennedy had affairs but the way that O'Reilly described it was as if Kennedy couldn't last long without sleeping with a woman who was most decidedly not his wife.

After reading what turned out to be a poorly written farce about what happened during the years Kennedy was in office and all the events leading up to his assassination, I was in a Kennedy mood and decided to try watching the show "The Kennedys." Now this show was deemed so historically inaccurate that it wasn't allowed to air on the History Channel. The more I watched it the more it seemed familiar to me. Then it hit me, I felt as if I was rereading "Killing Kennedy." I swear I felt such a sense of deja vu that I thought to myself 'ah here is where Bill O'Reilly did his research.' Or more to the point it was as if he took the show and turned it into a book.  

I found that this was a poorly written, poorly researched 'history' book. Of course I wasn't really expecting a lot from this particular book so it wasn't that much of a let down. This is one of those books that you can skip and not worry about it. I don't mean to be rude or petty but this is how I feel about this book. And I did promise to always be as honest as possible.