Metacritic Books

Assassination Vacation
by Sarah Vowell

ISBN: 0743260031
Simon & Schuster, 272 pages, $21.00
Nonfiction History, Social Sciences, Travel
Released 04/04/2005

The writer, NPR contributor and Incredibles star takes a typically humorous road trip through America looking for tourist attractions related to our first three assassinated presidents, Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley.

Overall Metascore

This is an average of all individual scores given by critics, on a scale of 0 (worst) to 100 (best).

71 / 100

Critic Reviews

Outstanding Publishers Weekly
This is history at its most morbid and most fascinating.
Favorable San Francisco Chronicle Greg Beato
At times, though, she's too much the stand-up comedian, determined to punctuate every fact she exhumes with a verbal elbow in the ribs, even when the material would be better served without such efforts.
Favorable The Globe And Mail [Toronto] Lionel Shriver
Her voice is energetic, jousting and dry. [30 Apr 2005, p.D10]
Favorable The New York Times Book Review Bruce Handy
A learned, engagingly discursive, funny, sometimes even jolly ramble -- literally -- through the landscape of American presidential assassinations.
Favorable PopMatters C.W. Thompson
Vowell's style is particularly engaging.
Mixed The Onion A.V. Club Tasha Robinson
Like any detailed documentation of a private obsession, Assassination Vacation can seem a bit dull in the details, at least when Vowell herself doesn't openly show her enthusiasm. But when she does, that enthusiasm is infectious.
Mixed Washington Post Catherine Tumber
Vowell's ambitions get the best of her, however, as she attempts to weigh in on the historical particulars of each assassination.

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