When I read the synopsis of this book, boy, was I excited! I was fully prepared to get an inside look into what it would be like for a woman to not only become president but also to have earned a spot at the poker table full of bluffing men that we call politics.

Rey Rodriguez definitely decided to take his readers on a fantasy-like ride where the only likeness to the real world were some of the randomly mentioned and quoted political events. Although it was made abundantly clear that political history is an area of extreme interest to the author, it was very difficult for me not to get lost in this story.

The story is meant to follow the Presidency of Polly, a 40-something, first-in-line, progressive, female President! We are meant to get an in-depth look at what it meant to have a seat at the table (the BIG table), while being a person of color (and the issues associated with that), while also being a woman. But, instead, we get more of what appears to be a random history lesson and a fantasized take on a shot at a presidency. I loved that the author had a wealth of knowledge and an interest in the actual historical context of different highly political events. Getting a look into the agricultural industry, start-ups, travel, education, and the ebbs and flows of the political arena was so cool, but in my opinion they came way too late in the book.

We spent a ton of time at the start of the book on the main character's childhood and by the end of the book, we only needed about a paragraph worth of that information. The whole backbone of the book should have been Polly's presidency, but instead, we seemed to get everything but... Her presidency was reduced to short, list-style paragraphs about a day-dream of a presidency where every plan that she thought up was the best plan ever and subsequently worked, and where it was even adopted by foreign countries for being so perfect. As president, she managed to rid the streets of many of its guns (which were turned into police stations to be melted down and repurposed), cleared up the list of inmates on death row (by pardon, of course), influenced Russia to follow in her progressive footsteps, created more companies and thereby more jobs for the young people to occupy, raised the stocks in the stock markets, and so on...

The book did present some semi-thought-provoking conversations on things like capitalism, elitism, world travel, etc. Additionally, there were so many good ideas presented, however, they were mere words as their implementation seemed far off, even for the author.

Overall, if you're in the mood to buy a dream, then this may be the book for you. But, if you err more on the side of reason, logic, and explanation then I'd definitely skip this one.

Thanks for reading.

❥Bree