5 Of The Best Books About The Kennedy Family, Ranked By Reviews

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The Kennedys are the closest to royalty the land of "No Kings" may ever get (you know, aside from the Kardashians). Whether running for office or just a spot in the day's trending topics, its members were making headlines as far back as the 1800s. They're still at it today, thanks to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s stint as Secretary of Health and Human Services and FX's 2026 limited series "Love Story," which follows the love story and tragic deaths of John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy.

Those looking for more information about the family, however, might find the literary landscape as treacherous as the political one its members have traversed. As with so much in our culture, the books with the most buzz aren't always the best reviewed. Elizabeth Beller's "Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy," which formed the basis of "Love Story," didn't make our list. Neither did "Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed" by Maureen Callahan, which jumped almost immediately from publication to the bestseller list in 2024, but received mixed reviews from readers. It takes a little more digging to find the crowning jewels of Camelot.

J. Randy Taraborrelli is kind of a Kennedy expert. He's written six books about the family, in addition to more than a dozen profiling celebrities from the Bushes to Beyonce. In other words, the man knows how to write a biography. "The Kennedy Heirs," which focuses on the generation that includes John Jr., Caroline, and Bobby Jr., is one of his most detailed yet, according to reviewers on Goodreads and Amazon. "Love Story" viewers, this is the one you'll wanna grab. Carolyn Bessette and JFK Jr.'s marriage and the red flags surrounding it are central to the narrative, one reviewer noted, providing an anchor to tie the rest of the stories together.

Taraborrelli also gave significant space to Ethel Kennedy, who had become the final boss of the family by the time Bessette came around by providing it with 11 children (no wonder she was so cranky), revealing that she had tried to talk Bessette out of getting on that plane. Swifties should also look into this book, which explores Taylor Swift's surprising relationship with the Kennedy family (and its end) in detail. In fact, some reviewers found Taraborrelli's research a little too comprehensive, wishing for a Kennedy family org chart to keep it all straight, and one complained of inconsistencies in Taraborrelli's retellings of events, but most praised the depth of information and respect in this installment of his Kennedy franchise.

Perhaps the only Kennedy marriage more scrutinized than JFK Jr.'s was that of his parents, John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Their courtship and struggles, his extramarital indiscretions, and her life after his death have been extensively chronicled, especially in this biography "Jack and Jackie" from Time Magazine journalist Christopher Anderson. He was the first to access information from sealed archives and key members of the Kennedy inner circle, leading to the explosive reveals filling its pages.

Much of that information, according to reviewers, concerned the salacious side of the Kennedy marriage, encompassing not just the bitter jealousy between the pair but also President Kennedy's experience of chronic pain and subsequent drug use. The book also explores husband and wife's relationships with each of their parents, including the openly philandering Joseph Kennedy and scheming Janet Bouvier-Auchincloss, and how they might have contributed to their views on marriage and behavior within their own. While one reviewer complained that "Jack and Jackie" is preoccupied with scandal, another insisted it is "full of great anecdotes without being gossipy."

Chris Matthews, former host of MSNBC's "Hardball," was a young man when Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated amidst a promising presidential campaign in 1968. "Bobby Kennedy: A Raging Spirit" is told from that perspective, looking back on the life of a figure Matthews was sure would save us if he'd only been given the chance. It recounts the story of how Kennedy transcended his status as the "perpetual underdog" of the family from his childhood through his political career, in the context of the '50s and '60s that Matthews remembers.

The framing was the right call, according to reviewers. They were spellbound by Matthews's storytelling, and a few even declared him a much better author than a talking head. Although one Kennedy aficionado in the reviews suggested that, despite Matthews's depth of research and political connections, "Raging Spirit" is a fairly basic overview of Kennedy's life, most agreed that both men's passion resulted in a rapturous read.

Few people get as much access to the most personal moments of the first family as the Secret Service. During JFK's presidency and shortly after, agent Clint Hill was assigned to Jacqueline Kennedy, meaning he was literally at her side during some of her darkest hours. Most significantly, he was the agent seen jumping on the back of the car in his rush to protect her in the footage of her husband's assassination. Hill recounts this incident as well as births, deaths, and dodging Frank Sinatra in his uniquely intimate memoir, "Mrs. Kennedy and Me."

It may seem at first glance like an overly reverent portrayal, and Hill's admiration for Mrs. Kennedy is clear, but reviews indicate that he reveals perhaps even more than he intends. Specifically, many reviewers were struck by either the first lady's unawareness or her indifference that her penchant for far-flung vacations and lengthy shopping sprees often kept her Secret Service agents away from their families. Still, his respect for his charge never wavers, and his account of the assassination is described as among the most moving that many reviewers have ever read. 

As one of the few U.S. presidents whose tenure ended in blood, John F. Kennedy is the subject of countless biographies ranging from masterful to malarkey, but no one could call Fredrik Logevall's weighty tome trash. Logevall is a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian, for one thing, as well as a professor at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, so he's certainly got the cred. His examination of how Kennedy was molded to be president from birth (and, in a sense, long before), took a full seven years to research and write and won the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography. In 2023, it was optioned by Netflix as the basis for a limited series about Kennedy's life. It's no surprise that it's our top-reviewed book about the Kennedy family.

And according to reviews, "JFK: Coming Of Age In The American Century" delivers on the hype in spades. Reviewers describe it as one of the starkest portraits of Kennedy in print, with more than one marveling that JFK "leaps off the page." Though one reviewer complained of repetition and Logevall's editorialization of certain events, most agreed that those seven years paid off, producing one of the most thorough studies of an extraordinary man that also didn't shy away from his faults, even though it ends well before his presidential campaign. Who's excited for the upcoming part two? 

To assemble this list, we searched Amazon and Goodreads for nonfiction books about the Kennedy family, sorting by highest average review where possible. To ensure the broadest selection possible, we aimed to include books about all family members, rather than just limiting our list JFK or Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. We aimed to only include books that garnered at least 1,000 reviews to ensure our selections were well-received by audiences.

We then added together the average reviewer score for each book from each service for a total number out of 10.The resulting total scores were ranked from highest to lowest, and the books with the top five scores were selected for this list.