American Princess

March 1, 2019

DEBUT With access to the richest and most powerful people in the world, Alice Roosevelt has everything but the thing she craves most--her father's approval. The oldest daughter of President Teddy Roosevelt, she's as vain as she is charming, as impulsive as she is calculating. Determined to live life to the fullest, Alice is many things--a lovestruck teenager, a trendsetter, a congressman's wife, an adulterer, a mother, and a grandmother, but above all, she's her father's daughter. Readers will be enthralled by Alice's wit and adventures while simultaneously dreading the heartache and tragedy to come. From her days as a young woman gracing the society pages to her later years when she comes to be known as "the other Washington Monument," Alice perseveres and is unapologetic. VERDICT The first-person narrative gives authenticity to the voice of this complex woman, as Thornton expertly weaves the events of her life. Fans of presidential fiction will devour this book, and biography lovers may be intrigued as well.--Vicki Briner, Broomfield, CO

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2019
In 1901, when Theodore Roosevelt ascends to the presidency, his daughter Alice is 18, ready to take Washington society by storm. Rebellious, unconventional Alice frequently butts heads with her father and stepmother over everything from smoking in the White House (her solution? Smoking on the White House roof, instead) to her relationship with the charming, philandering Ohio congressman, Nick Longworth. Alice and Nick's on-again, off-again courtship leads to a similarly tempestuous marriage, one plagued by adultery and Nick's heavy drinking. Thornton (The Tiger Queens, 2014) portrays Alice as a refreshingly complicated woman, an attention-seeking socialite with many petty jealousies and squabbles but also an intelligent woman whose desires for love, attention, and power are larger than the predefined box into which society has placed her. While the second half of the book, detailing the later years of Alice's marriage, her affair with a famous senator, and her tumultuous relationship with her daughter, are slightly less compelling, this is an absorbing portrait of a woman who lived life on her own terms.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)