Two websites have restricted or banned reviews of Vice President JD Vance’s new book following a stream of savage critiques.
Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith, published June 16 by HarperCollins, is Vance’s memoir detailing his conversion to Catholicism. It’s his second book following Hillbilly Elegy, which chronicled his upbringing in a poor white Appalachian family.
On Friday, The Daily Beast reported that Amazon restricted reviews of the vice president’s new book to verified purchasers only, leaving the tome with just seven reviews: six five-stars and one two-star. On Goodreads, which is owned by Amazon, reviews were disabled entirely. A pop-up message informs viewers that “rating this book is temporarily unavailable.” No prior ratings for the book are visible.
Both groups are connected to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos who has been cozying up to President Donald Trump in recent months.
The X account @HQNewsNow, affiliated with former Vice President Kamala Harris, posted an apparent screenshot from Goodreads on Thursday, writing: “Reviews have been turned off for JD Vance’s book after it received numerous 1-star reviews.”
The account also included a sampling of critiques, which seems to have been posted before the review function was disabled.
“Why would anyone believe anything that comes from this man?” read a one-star review. “He does not uphold Christian values, has lied to all Americans, does not respect his wife & his soul has been sold to the highest bidder.”
“Save your time and money. Read anything else,” one reviewer wrote, while another chimed in: “Dude wouldn’t know religion if it or the pope hit him in the face.”
Goodreads, one of the world’s largest book discussion sites, only removes rating in response to “specific” situations, the website’s guidelines state. These include instances in which users rate books “based on factors irrelevant to the contents of the book,” or when users “artificially inflate or deflate a book’s average rating.”
Reviews from media outlets weren’t particularly glowing either.
The Wall Street Journal describes it as “part religious memoir, part campaign book,” which suffers from moments of “egregious sloppiness.”
“Communion does [Vance] no favors, though, mostly in its sheer banality,” The Cut’s review states. “It’s not even incendiary…though he can’t help but hide his contempt for liberals (one woman is smeared for the mortal sin of wearing a beret).”
The Ohio-born vice president is currently in the middle of a nationwide promotional tour for the book, which has taken him to unusual places, including The View— which stars a gaggle of largely liberal women.
During that June 16 appearance, he described his new memoir as “actually way less political than you might think.”
Much of the conversation, though, centered on him defending Trump’s agenda. The panel grilled him on a number of issues, including Jeffrey Epstein, the Iran war and immigration.
At one point, Vance exclaimed: “Let’s talk about the book, I’m here to sell books.”
The Independent has reached out to Amazon and Goodreads for comment.
