As a history buff and an daily visitor of the Onion’s A.V. Club website, I was very excited to hear that a contributor to the A.V. Club had written a book about former president William Howard Taft traveling through time to participate in the 2012 election. Sadly, I felt this book was a big letdown. The characters all seem rather flat (ironic – since Taft was our heaviest president), there’s no interesting conflict in the book (Taft leads a boring campaign against processed food), and the humor is typical time-travel fare (Taft loves “the Google” and is amazed that we can play golf on a videogame console). References to facts and actual events from Taft’s life are shoehorned in every now and then. I guess my expectations were set too high…
Rating: 2 out of 5