Rating: 
Summary: Caveat emptor
Review: Some other reviewers here seem to have found this book riotously funny and blazingly insightful, but I'm really at a loss as to exactly where in this story the laughs are, and equally unable to believe real people with any intellect, sense of self-worth, or moral values would act or react the way these characters do. More than any book I've purchased in years, this one left me resenting the fact I'd judged the book by its cover blurbs and regretting the time and money spent on it.
Rating: 
Summary: The flip side of presidential pecadillos...
Review: The characters are likeable, though they slip into the venal. No, you might not like the premise - infidelity spawned by power seduction (not rape!) - but Tarloff does a very good job of taking a 2 word cliche and developing it into an interesting story (the literary device is called a "conceit", I believe). He pens an all too plausible plot line and goes far enough to develop the characters well in this darker bedroom farce, and it has the ring of too much truth. It might cause you to think just one level beyond the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal as cartooned in the national press. It's a good enough read to keep you awake turning those pages and you probably won't disrespect yourself in the morning.Hey Erik & Laura - is this your story????
Rating:
Summary: The flip side of presidential pecadillos...
Review: The characters are likeable, though they slip into the venal. No, you might not like the premise - infidelity spawned by power seduction (not rape!) - but Tarloff does a very good job of taking a 2 word cliche and developing it into an interesting story (the literary device is called a "conceit", I believe). He pens an all too plausible plot line and goes far enough to develop the characters well in this darker bedroom farce, and it has the ring of too much truth. It might cause you to think just one level beyond the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal as cartooned in the national press. It's a good enough read to keep you awake turning those pages and you probably won't disrespect yourself in the morning. Hey Erik & Laura - is this your story????
Rating: 
Summary: More Please
Review: This book is wonderful. This is one of those books that I stayed up all night to finish. Tarloff's writing filled me with the characters's joy and sorrow as if it were my own. The writing is exquisite. The book is perfect. The first thing I did after finishing this book was to look for more books by Erik Tarloff, but there are none. I hope to see more by this author soon, whatever the subject.
Rating:
Summary: Face-Time is a very entertaining book.
Review: This is one of the most entertaining books that I've read in some time. Also,the timing is right in that everyone's interest has been peeked by the Presidency. The author's vocabulary is not your common every day garden vocabulary with which readers are more comfortable, but it's the author's first book!
Rating:
Summary: Very thought-provoking.
Review: This novel grabbed me and pulled me right in. Much has been made of Erik Tarloff's Washington/political associations, and the sly innuendos regarding his wife's former position in the Clinton administration are downright insulting. Media attention to those issues detract focus from the real value of this debut novel, which is on elucidating in a fascinating manner complex power-plays and the secret motivations of people, in this case in the political arena. While the overt content is obviously timely, Tarloff goes far beyond a superficial analysis of "presidential sex". Furthermore, his writing is sharp and witty, and in some places downright lyrical. This novel is funny, sophisticated, challenging of assumptions--a MUST READ. I loved it.
Rating:
Summary: Tell, Tell, Tell
Review: This novel is terrible! I hate not finishing a book, but Icannot read one more word of this waste of paper. Don't make the samemistake I did and be fooled by the glowing nods and half-reviews given Face-Time. It's bad, not because the plot is obvious and tired (which it is), but because of the writing. The author employs words like "datum" over and over again and enlists characters who are pretentious and unbelievable. Worst of all, the story is all tell and no show; that is to say, the narrator doesn't describe events and feelings but informs you of them. You never get a sense of what's happening or where it's happening because you're told "I was upset" or "He was impressive" or "It was a moving speech." Thanks, but I like my books to transport me somewhere, especially when we're supposed to be traveling inside places like the White House movie theater and Paris night clubs. Once I came upon the page in which the narrator meets some Parisian woman who is supposed to be struggling with English but easily uses the word "putative" and easily recognizes a White House speechwriter, I gave up. END
Rating: 
Summary: Neither black nor white nor much fun
Review: This sure sounded good. Joe Klein made an excellent novel out of similar material. Tarloff begins with an interesting premise and keeps his characters in the intriguing gray area of believable human behavior, their hats neither clearly white nor black. So why is the novel not much fun, and eventually interminable, despite its brief length? Perhaps because it doesn't read like a novel, but rather like a prose outline for one: we are told everything, shown little. In theory, the story presented is interesting, but theory is all we get, and eventually it all gets kind of whiny and annoying. And although the book remains well-balanced, it almost never, ever funny. Without humor, or anything resembling a satiric edge, we're left with an earnest sexual/political soap opera in which not much happens. This book feels as if it contains a good story struggling to break free, but it never quite manages to do so.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant, insightful, laugh-out-loud funny, profound
Review: This witty, elegantly written novel is so much more than just a riveting story about Washington: it's a hilarious and perceptive book about behavior, what people are really thinking under the surface, whom they're attracted to and why, and how ethics get caught up in the mix. The author is deeply compassionate about seeing people as they really are, illuminating their foibles without throwing rocks at them. (And he doesn't mix metaphors as I just did...) Delightful and wise at the same time --- and maybe above all else, damn funny.
Rating:
Summary: A must read for anyone interested in politics.
Review: While Tarloff's book might seem to be a timely missive on sex and scandal in Washington, what lies beneath the surface is a commentary on how all of us--both men and women--are seduced by power in one form or another. As the husband of Clinton's former Economic Advisor, Laura D'Andrea Tyson, Tarloff's insights have been honed by both an insider's, and in some ways outsider's, view of Washington. Tarloff's book is a study in human nature which combines sex, politics, ego, ambition, power and lust. It is a must read for anyone interested in the political realm and an insider's view of what really drives Washington.
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