Stephanie Winston WolkoffReseñas

# Melania and Me

”He who augments his wealth by interest and increase gathers it for him who is kind to the poor.“
‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭28‬:‭8‬ ‭RSV‬‬
https://bible.com/bible/2020/pro.28.8.RSV

W is for wisdom in choosing the right relationships to bring happiness and joy. Not fakery and a better than thou spirit. I felt both women used each other for their own gain and benefit. Except one was private about it. The other one? Wrote a book and complained about it. Not wisdom. At all.

E is for empathetic discernment. Empathize with others emotionally. Yet take some time to step back and assess whether getting into the issue is worth getting involved into or if your time would best be spent elsewhere focusing on your own health and worthiness. Just because you are friends with someone does not mean that you have to getting dragged into their entire world without any compensation or thank you or acknowledgment of services rendered. I felt that the author-bless her heart-did not use empathetic discernment before getting involved with the world she was involved in and when she got spat out cruelly and then used and mistreated and castigated without even a ‘Thank you for all your help’ from not a single person in that world it showed that no one really gave a shit about her and her needs and they were only milking her like a cow for their benefit and sending her away to the butcher when they were done with her to be blamed for everything that went down. Which again was not empathy. It is shitty. It was finessing.

A is for always being mindful. Being mindful of what you say. Being mindful of how you say it. Being mindful of who you say it to. The author learned this the most painful and difficult way. However what I gleamed from this was that absolutely no one could be trusted enough to stand by her side and give her themselves one hundred and ten percent like she did. The fault also laid with her in that she was a bit needy and went overboard when it was not needed. If she had boundaries from the beginning and did. To blurt everything out to those around her then I believe her friend would have trusted her more and treated her with more care and value than just tossing her away like a rag. Those who know do not tell. The wise know but do not tell. I feel very uncomfortable reading about these conversations between Mrs. T- and Mrs. W- because I felt that it should have remained private between the two.

Personally this book should have never been published as I believe it is a deep invasion of privacy to Mrs. T-. No matter what she still deserves to be treated with respect and decorum and love no matter what happened with her spouse. She is her own person. She should never be defined by the actions, words, and habits of her husband and those around her.½

I was more interested in this than I expected. Even got used to SWW's voice, and perhaps, against my usual rule, it's ok that she reads her own book. The style of the book is very much like she is telling us a long story over lunch, the type of lunches she has with Melanie. Her own story as the organiser of the Met Gala was also pretty amazing. Accurate or not, I do appreciate knowing more about the mysterious Melania who seems as unusual a personality as her unlikeable husband.½

This book is proof that you can reach your 40’s and not know how to properly judge human beings. Melania Trump was practically screaming, “I will use you until you have nothing left, and then I will discard you,” and this woman kept going back for more.

On top of that, this book is full of martyr moments where she’s sacrificing her health, family, finances and putting herself in legal jeopardy, and she still wants to cling on to the myth of Melania, as empty a vessel as her horrible husband. But it comes off as whining instead of building her up. Stephanie is the person in the horror movie who you are yelling at to not go back into the house. She just can’t help it, maybe she’s just not that bright.

She finally, after 14 years of emoji laden ‘friendship,’ understood that when someone tells you what they are, believe them.

What a bizarre tale of self-destruction... And for what? To be close to "royalty", or "to help" her "friend" Melania??? With absolutely no financial compensation? Are we to understand that a smart lady like the author, with impeccable event organizing credentials, is that naive?...

"Our first full month in the White House was like living inside an emotional washing machine that only made you feel dirtier with every rinse."

The above quote says it all... Ms. Winston Wolkoff tries her best to justify her staying in that environment (things like "protecting" her "friend" Melania from the Trump family - especially from Ivanka - etc....), but Melania emerges in this account as a practical, calculating person quite capable to protect herself, who knows exactly what she is in for, and who has her priorities all figured out. As per this book, in many aspects, Melania and Trump are truly worth each other...

It's not surprising to find the emerging Trump administration a total chaos. The surprise is how deceived Ms. Winston Wolkoff was in her emotions towards Melania, who values her luxuries more than anything and who would much rather spend time at a spa - at her own admission - according to the author, than go campaigning for her husband or attend some political function.

In hindsight, the author herself doesn't feel that it was worth it, what with her huge health problem in the midst of it all, as well as her anguish about her son's extreme food allergies - all that had to be put aside for the sake of Trump inauguration and later - for the sake of making something great out of Melania... One can't help but doubt the naive nature that Stephanie W. W. claims to have had through all of this...

The book left me with an unpleasant feeling. In structure, it is a hectic, all-over-the-place narrative, too detailed, especially describing the author's great skills in arranging events (!), with the desire to prove her great self-worth, and also the depiction of constant scheming and suspicion and lack of trust among everybody around her... Why did she go on in an environment like that?... A million dollar question.

The author of this book was naive enough to think that Melania Trump was her friend, instead finally coming to realize that she's just as cold and manipulative as the rest of the family she married into. Her extensive (much too long) descriptions of the planning and financial maneuvering that took place for Trump's inauguration show just how corrupt his administration and the people around him are. No surprise there - except for the author, apparently. She was really taken for a sucker, and I can't feel sorry for her.½

This could best be described as Stephanie likes to whine.
First about Ivanka and her staff as well as the media at large being 'unfair' to bobble-head Melania.
Then about bobble-head Melania's supposed betrayal of the author.
It's messy, messy.

The author's hypocrisy is laughable.

One of the opening anecdotes of the book is about the author and Melania laughing at lunch over chumps 'grab 'em by the pussy' statement.

Yet when Melania is outed as a former sex worker the author is suddenly extremely upset about slut shaming, mansplaining and sexism.

The author literally ONLY cares about issues that personally impact her life.
She never once mentions the rabid racism displayed by chump and Melania herself.
Folks seem to forget that Melania touted that same racist birther bullshit as her fascist husband.

The author makes strategic use of coded racist language in relation to Black employees of the Obama Administration and White House. She tries to obfuscate this by omitting the race of the person being discussed but her coded speech makes her message crystal clear.

The author had never previously voted in a presidential election. She gives some nonsense playing on outdated sexist bimbo stereotyping to explain about not understanding the difference between candidates or party platforms.

This is the sad and tragic tale of the friendship between Melania Trump and Stephanie Winston Wolkoff. Mrs. Wolkoff knew Mrs. Trump from days in New York City when their children attended the same private school. Mrs. Wolkoff made the naive mistake of thinking that Mrs. Trump was her friend. After the election she did volunteer work on planning for the inauguration events. Later, she worked at the White House as personal advisor to Mrs. Trump without the benefit of a valid contract or pay. She also made the mistake of signing a non-disclosure agreement. When the press questioned the accounting for inauguration funds Melania and the west wing of the White House threw Mrs. Wolkoff under the bus, firing her from her White House job and failing to defend her when the press printed untrue statements about her involvement in how the inauguration funds were dispersed. In the end, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff came to the realization that she had been played for a sucker. This book is a long, and at times tedious account of how she came to this conclusion. I listened to an audiobook version of this book, 11 hours and 22 minutes.

I really enjoyed learning more about how the inauguration was planned, the inner workings of the East Wing, and insight into Melania's life - but I did not enjoy the whiney "look at me" moments from the author. Stephanie constantly touted her resume, her work with famous designers, editors, and politicians; including snippets from articles she was mentioned in and lots of photographic evidence to reinforce her larger than life reputation. Stephanie put herself in a stupid situation that was toxic for her emotional and physical health, her family and her finances. Yes she was friends with Melania since the early 2000s. They hung out and texted a lot. Then it quickly turned into Melania wanting favors from their friendship leading into planning and executing the inauguration and then taking an unpaid position in Melania's cabinet. She had no title and no salary but hung around because Melania was her friend and it was her patriotic duty? Come on. Is she really surprised that the Trump family threw her under the bus to save their own asses later on down the line? Again, there were some interesting tidbits about Melania, Ivanka and the Trump family but honestly no shocking revelations. They're all scum.

This book is well written and holds one attention.

Although the author does talk about the relationship they had prior to the Presidency, there is not really all that much about Melania. a good part of it deals with the chaos involved in planning the inauguration celebrations. No surprises here, though, as incompetence, greed, unethical spending on egocentric extravagances and gross misuse of funds seems typical for this administration.

If anyone ever had the inclination to feel sorry for Melania because of her outrageous husband, this book will cure that as she is as cold and calculating as her husband and the rest of his family….but I think we all have learned that about her over the years.

The author got a raw deal from her, but don’t feel the least bit sorry for her; she knew who the Trumps were. And, are we really expected to believe that the author, who claims all kinds of accolades and achievements, was that naive?

I'm glad Wolkoff was able to write this book. What draws someone in to the "Trump family" to ever think they are going to do anything but accept and expect all you are willing to give them? It wasn't as though Wolkoff wasn't warned as she seemed to become deeper and deeper into believing she could actually accomplish "something" through what she finally realized, was a completely false picture of a "friend." She writes how so many people were telling her to "RUN" from the Trumps, but look what it took....fo make her finally realize what was happening to her and, sadly, to the country. It would be interesting to see how she kept so many details around everything that was happening---apart from the descriptive emails and texts back and forth. It has to have been an enormous relief to get this all out there, in the hope that people reading about her experiences can see how easy it is....to be so fooled by something that is only skin deep, if that. As she says, a Trump is a Trump is a Trump--they are all one and the same.