Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign

The book is based mainly on interviews with Clinton campaign staff that the authors conducted over a year and a half.[2][4] Among its assertions are that some Clinton confidants attempted to get Robby Mook fired as her campaign manager and that Huma Abedin targeted people who gave constructive criticism to the campaign.[5] Another was that Bill Clinton was alarmed by the dropoff in support for his wife among white working class voters, but that his concerns went unheeded within the campaign staff.[6]

In addition to that, her campaign team had great difficulty in convincing voters of her authenticity through effective campaign slogans and themes. They failed to learn from both the Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump campaigns, who successfully targeted millennials and people disgruntled by the Rust Belt's economical state. A recurrent topic is also the campaign's failure to get up-to-date polling data, focusing on less expensive analysts instead. In addition, the book notes that the campaign staff's personal interaction with Hillary Clinton was limited and sporadic and that she mainly stayed aloof and remote from day-to-day campaign strategy planning.

In a favorable review for The New York Times, Michiko Kakutani described Shattered as "compelling".[2] David Shribman, in a review for The Globe and Mail, wrote that the book "...provides a sharp behind-the-news and behind-the-scenes palette of details of a campaign that, in retrospect, seems preordained to fail, and fail miserably."[7]

Some of the book's revelations about infighting among Clinton's campaign personnel have been denied by some of her campaign staff.[6] For example, in a blog post, Clinton campaign deputy communications director Christina Reynolds wrote:

...after spending most of the campaign watching some people question the enthusiasm and our supporters, it's hard to read a depiction of the campaign that paints a dedicated, cohesive team as mercenaries with questionable motives who lacked a loyalty to a candidate described as 'imperial' and removed from the campaign. That's just not the campaign, the staff or the candidate I was in the trenches with for 18 months.[5]

Additionally in reaction to the book, a series of campaign staffers posted photos of lighthearted moments from the campaign with sarcastic captions.[6] In response, author Parnes proclaimed "We stand by our reporting" all the while saying such images were not inconsonant with their depiction of the campaign en toto.[6]

Ron Elving of NPR said that the book effectively explained one Clinton paradox: "The Clinton we see here seems uniquely qualified for the highest office and yet acutely ill-suited to winning it. Something about her nature, at its best and its worst, continually inhibits her. Her struggle to escape her caricature only contributes to it."[1]

The book debuted at number one on The New York Times Best Seller list for its combined print and digital book editions. The hardcover book debuted at number two on The New York Times Best Seller list.[8] The following week it stayed at number two, and then, in the next week, fell to the three slot.[9] There it stayed for another week before falling to number seven in its fifth week.[10] It then recovered slightly to number six before again tailing to number nine.[11] It then spent an eighth and final week on the list.[3]

• Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, 2016
• What Happened (Clinton book)

• Interview with co-author Jonathan Allen (May 2017). Video, 20 minutes