“Taraborrelli is highly effective at describing this sisterly dynamic. [But] for all the sisters’ dramatics, the true star of this particular show is decidedly neither the directionless Lee nor the determined Jackie. It is, in fact, the third figure in the book: Janet Bouvier Auchincloss. Taraborrelli brings her to splendid, renewed life. His trick of turning incidents into highly colored tableaus threaded with dialogue makes excellent use of well-trodden material. By today’s reckoning, Janet was a monster of a mother; but Taraborrelli paints her with a kind of superb pathos. These women dealt in surfaces but that doesn’t mean they lacked depth. They made no achievements by any modern standard, but this deliciously readable book is not in the business of judging: it knows its value better than that.”