I had just finished listening to Mary Trump’s book Too Much and Never Enough when Father’s Day came around, and there was Donald Trump online, praising his son Eric and completely ignoring Don Jr. I commented on the post that it was eerily reminiscent of how Mary had described her father, Fred Jr.’s treatment by Fred Sr., who was the father of Fred Jr. and Donald. Apparently, breaking the cycle of abuse is not possible for Donald Trump.

Mary Trump is not just Donald Trump’s only niece. She is also a clinical psychologist. Being the daughter of the eldest of Fred Trump Sr.’s sons, she had a front-row seat to the family dynamics that produced our current President. After listening to the book, read by the author, I found a lot of his behavior explained and still alarming. Mary states she didn’t speak out earlier because of misguided family loyalty. This is a family that never once treated her or her brother, Fritz, like they were a part of the family when it came to support and yet she still was programmed to be loyal to them.

Too Much and Never Enough focuses mostly on Mary’s father, Fred Jr. His life was a tragic one by all accounts. Groomed to succeed his father in the family business, Fred Jr. never really had an aptitude for it, nor did he particularly enjoy it. What he did enjoy was flying. Contrary to most other members of the family who shunned any kind of military service, Fred Jr. joined the Air National Guard and eventually left the Trump family business to be a pilot for TWA. However, the damage had been done, and Fred ended up losing his pilot’s job because of the alcoholism that was his coping mechanism.

Meanwhile, Fred Sr. lavished attention on Donald. Donald acted out and was a bully, and Fred saw no need to curb the behavior until he was asked to leave the private school where Fred Sr. sat on the board. That was when Donald was sent off to the New York Military Academy. He came back only slightly better. Always indulged and never one to feel the consequences of his actions, Donald Trump joined the family business as Fred’s right-hand man. The details of Donald’s business escapades leave little doubt that if it weren’t for the money Fred Sr. continually used to bail him out, we likely never would have heard of him.

Donald really wasn’t the real estate development guru that his publicist (and Mark Burnett) made him out to be. He was and still is a showman like P.T. Barnum. He ate up being in the spotlight and kept his name there as a way of drawing attention to himself and the family business. Mary pieces together some of the financial misdeeds that took place. When her father died in 1981, it was promised that she and her brother would be cared for. They grew up in an apartment in one of the buildings owned by Fred Trump Sr., and Mary thought for a long time that she was very close to her grandmother. All of that came crashing down when Fred Sr. died, and the family tried everything to stop Mary and Fritz from challenging the fact that the will did not divide the estate equally among Fred’s children, with Fred Trump Jr.’s share going to his survivors.

Some people claim that this is why Mary wrote the book: that she has an ax to grind against members of the family for how they treated her and her brother (at one point, they tried to discontinue their participation in the family health insurance that was keeping Fritz’s ill son alive). If there were no corroborating evidence, I’d say it could be true. However, there have been numerous stories from other sources, as well as legal issues, that do not present the family and the business in a good light. The one thing not addressed anywhere in the book are any of the details about Trump’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein or those allegations. I’m not sure if it just didn’t come up in Mary’s interaction with him, or if that was one point she was afraid to discuss. There were some legal battles over the publication of this book.

Too Much and Never Enough is the tale of a dysfunctional family. If he weren’t such a horrible person doing harm to so many people, I could feel sorry for Donald Trump after listening to it. Instead, he is trying to act just like his father, the man whose approval he sought all of his life. Donald Trump is not the businessman his father was, as evidenced by his many bankruptcies. She writes about his constant need for approval and always being the “best” of anything. Anyone who’s paid attention over the past 10 years can see this in his personality.

Although I’ve been doing my best of late not to read anything about the current state of the United States and our President for my own mental health, I found Too Much and Never Enough to be a good listen. It was informative without making me angry all over again. The problem is, the people who should read this and take Mary’s cautions to heart never will.