The latest entry in the 2020 Election and Its Aftermath Cinematic Universe, but unlike Landslide or Frankly We Did Win This Election, I found Peril to be boring and uninteresting with lib smugness oozing off the pages (er rather, out of my headphones as I listened to the auidobook)

The book is divided into a whopping 72 chapters, but all of them are rather short, none of the chapters in the audiobook exceeded 20 minutes

THE REVIEW

One might think based on the title and the billing that it entails the 2020 election and Trump's efforts to reverse his loss through the courts, but instead the book's timeline stretches from 2015 to June 2021, where many of the early chapters go from anecdotes about Biden's decision to run for president and brief overviews of Hunter Biden's drug issues, to completely unnecessary insights into Paul Ryan's response to the Charlottesville rally in 2017, and quick recaps of the totally inconsequential Russia Investigation and thr Mueller Report, told through the lens of William Barr. Once the authors decide to actually start the important narrative, they spend lots of time sucking off Biden, devoting entire chapters to Jim Clyburn's endorsement and his VP search. The book also keeps circling back to General Milley, who I honestly found to be a sympathetic character, torn between is sense of duty to the US and his horror at having to serve under Trump.

Eventually the book gets to the good stuff, Trump's defeat in the 2020 Election and his hilarious attempts to overturn it, spearheaded by Rudy Guiliani, but unfortunately the book speedruns most of the events of post Election November and December, as well as the January 6th storming of the Capitol building. However, once the book moves to Biden's inauguration, it slides from boring to awful, giving lengthy descriptions of the push to pass the stimulus bill that they passed at the beginning of his presidency, with in depth looks at Joe Manchin, who comes off as a totally bitch made, whiny fuckface. Sprinkled throughout this is incredibly annoying excerpts of Lindsey Graham at Mar A Lago trying to goad Trump into agreeing to lead the republican party going forward. Absolute snoozefest

The Final chapters are about Biden deciding to pull out of Afghanistan, which again is agonizing descriptions of procedures like getting a CIA analysis of possible scenarios, and this part is only saved by for me by the whiny reactions of the pullout by generals and other ghouls like Lindsey Graham. The ending is kinda foreboding as Milley is quoted on his belief that Jan 6th was only the beginning, directly comparing it to how Lenin said the 1905 Russian Revolution was the dress rehearsal for 1917.

Overall 2/5, with a big ol 👎