This book is a good read, I enjoyed it, but.... First of all, the writing is not very good. That's a subjective criticism, though, and not the real problem.
The real problem is that -- I feel bad saying this, because the guy clearly has done a lot of research -- but I just want a little MORE. He has talked to a lot of people who met Bettie briefly, who employed her as a secretary or took amateur photos of her, but -- for instance, in the chapter about her marriage to Harry Lear, I just kept wishing he could have interviewed the step-kids. I know that's a tall order -- but I was just so unsatisfied with the piecemeal accounts I was getting. But that's a problem with investigative writing, I guess.
The other big problem was the photos. They are badly organized, and they're almost all pinups. Jeez, I know what she looked like. Give me one section of the precious pinups -- and then go out and get me some of the candid shots you keep telling me about. Her high school yearbook, before she cut her bangs. Her later marriages. Give me SOMETHING I haven't seen before.
And I was really, really put off by the author's preface. He was extremely, pompously defensive before I could even start reading the book, insisting that he hadn't done anything to hurt Bettie. The journalist doth protest too much, methinks.
All in all, it's been a pretty good read, excellent for subway rides, but the bad writing and grammatical mistakes and missing elements were distracting.