Note to self: finished reading and quoting from this one, no need to order again.

Yes, I'm writing a paper on a Cold War speech by JFK...

This might get downgraded to 3; it's hovering between 3 and 4.
It took me forever to read, but that was all me/life -- it's actually a generally fast-moving bio and pretty engaging. Things I did not dig: endnotes with no endnotes. That's right -- for some reason the notes weren't published in the book (blah blah length and production constraints apologetic note from the publisher blah blah) but you can read them online or write off to the publisher for them. I'm really tempted to do the latter, except I checked this out from the library, and do I really want to own the endnotes to a book and not the book? But who exactly the f!** is going to read a hardcover book but go online to read an endnote several times a page? So you go through this with these regularly appearing numbers that lead you nowhere...
AS for the writing and organizing -- well, it was chronological for his early life and thematic for his presidency. I get why authors do the whole thematic-presidency chapter organization, but when it's not deftly handled it's really distracting. I want to feel that I am in capable hands and not read something about Vietnam or the Dominican Republic and have to try to remember what was happening in Berlin the exact same week, told 400 pages earlier.
In general, I liked O'Brien's take on the questions and scandals of Kennedy (womanizing, involvement in Vietnam, nukes, intellectual convictions or lack thereof, Father Joe, PT boat, etc.) as he would present and analyze both sides of the stories. (Not that we could check the sources...) The ending though -- you know, Texas Book Depository and whatnot? -- was like page. Not that this book purported to or should have been about the assassination (there are other entire books about the event, and this was about JFK's life) but it was almost weird how it ended. Was it supposed to reflect JFK's sudden, unexpected demise, kind of Sopranos-finale-style? 'Cause that's grisly.

So, in case you didn't know, JFK was pretty much an ass to women (with the possible exception of his sisters, sometimes) and he and Bobby were fairly paranoid about Communism, but then, who wasn't overexcited about it then? But he also had some admirable abilities and he is interesting to read about, even though you also already know so many of the players as you read this bio, unlike with some prez bios.

Worth a read.

Good!