Name: Melania and Me
Rating: 2.4 (5 reviews)
ISBN: 9781982151256

Stephanie Winston Wolkoff

A Gallery book. Gallery Books has a great book for every reader.

The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady

Melania and Me

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER What Melania wants, Melania gets. The former director of special events at Vogue and producer of nine legendary Met Galas, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff met Melania Knauss in 2003 and had a front row seat to the transformation of Donald Trump’s then girlfriend from a rough-cut gem to a precious diamond. As their friendship deepened over lunches at Manhattan hot spots, black-tie parties, and giggle sessions in the penthouse at Trump Tower, Wolkoff watched the newest Mrs. Trump raise her son, Barron, and manage her highly scrutinized marriage. After Trump won the 2016 election, Wolkoff was recruited to help produce the 58th Presidential Inaugu­ration and to become the First Lady’s trusted advisor. Melania put Wolkoff in charge of hiring her staff, organizing her events, helping her write speeches, and creating her debut initiatives. Then it all fell apart when she was made the scapegoat for inauguration finance irregularities. Melania could have defended her innocent friend and confidant, but she stood by her man, knowing full well who was really to blame. The betrayal nearly destroyed Wolkoff. In this candid and emotional memoir, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff takes you into Trump Tower and the White House to tell the funny, thrilling, and heartbreaking story of her intimate friendship with one of the most famous women in the world, a woman few people truly understand. How did Melania react to the Access Hollywood tape and her husband’s affair with Stormy Daniels? Does she get along well with Ivanka? Why did she wear that jacket with “I really don’t care, do u?” printed on the back? Is Melania happy being First Lady? And what really happened with the inauguration’s funding of $107 million? Wolkoff has some ideas...

Patricia Nelson

I read this on a whim as it came up in my library browsing and I'd heard from a friend it was worth a read. It's interesting and sadly believable and tells her detailed story of her friendship with Melania Trump that became her association with the First Lady as an adviser. I think we may all have had people in our lives that were not who we thought they were, that hurt us in ways sometimes small and sometimes large, and that is a portion of the book that is relatable. As some other reviewers mentioned, I also got a little stuck on her comparing her trials with her grandparents' trials in the holocaust. For a person of such privilege to make such a comparison didn't feel right. Perhaps it was an unfortunate wording of that section, who knows? One portion toward the end of the book did strike me as so true in 2021: "I have learned that when it comes to politics, not knowing is not okay. For many years, I was apolitical. That was a mistake. I now know that is not an option—it’s a luxury. And a luxury no one can afford. One’s moral values and political beliefs clearly go hand in hand, and for me to have believed otherwise was naive and foolish".

Klaudia Iškyová 

An interesting look into Melania and the workings of the White House under Trump, but sounds more like a rich lady whining and complaining about something she knew was gonna happen sooner or later. A try at a sympathy grab from the people she went against when she voted for Trump.

Virginia Su

DNF @ 63%

Poorly written, and frankly pretty boring. Also, the author's self-serving nature is just too much.

Melania and Me The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady

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