Book Review: “Breaking History - A White House Memoir” by Jared Kushner

How did I get this book?

A couple of months ago, we were visiting Calvary Chapel of Palm Harbor on a Sunday morning. After church, I was catching up with my friend Dick Murdock and his wife Kathleen, and they were talking about this book and how much they enjoyed it. My interest was engaged, because Jared Kushner was a mysterious figure to me. I knew he held incredible influence during the Trump administration, but couldn’t discern if it was positive or negative.

A month later, I was at Barnes & Noble on a Friday morning date with Gen, saw the book, and she offered to purchase it for me as a gift. I readily accepted. And devoured it.

What is it about?

It’s Jared’s memoirs. And, it’s fascinating. Jared tells a bit of his childhood and his family history as immigrants. Those opening pages are an incredible story, and we hadn’t even got to the White House yet.

He tells how his father, who became a billionaire, ended up serving time in prison while Jared was still in school. He tells of his first real estate deals. There’s a tense story about rescuing a deal that went upside down in the recession of 2008. Then, of course, it’s how he met the Trumps, his courtship with Ivanka and then how he got swept up into what ended up in the White House.

The inside story of so many of the news events of those four years was so helpful to me. From the Abraham Accords to Soleimani, the USMCA and Warp Speed is breathtaking, all mixed in with Russian Collusion and office politics.

What did I think?

I really enjoyed reading this book. He writes in a smooth, easily accessible and relatable way. He’s an outsider, a real estate guy, a deal-maker, very, very smart, hard-working and appears gracious. And, though he looks like one of those “slim-suit” silver-spoon types, he has known suffering.

He seemed mysterious to me. I’m glad he wrote this. If everything here is true, he worked very hard and made significant progress on important issues and made a profound positive impact in the world. I have a lot of respect for him, and would readily give him $2b to invest if I had it.

Maybe this might some up what I thought about this book. I handed it to my 15 year old son to read.

Have you read it? What did you think?