Despite the juicy personal details, the Times and Newsweek said Clinton is haphazard in chronicling other important parts of his life -- denying he sexually harassed Arkansas state employee Paula Jones but failing to give his side of what happened as well as his role in other scandals during his administration, like the Whitewater real-estate deal and illegal campaign fund raising.
Instead, he choses to detail meals he ate, remark on Arkansas policy debates and list stops on the campaign trial.
"By the time Clinton finally becomes president on page 476, a little of the steam has gone out of the telling," Newsweek wrote.
"Chapters often pass in a blur of policies, people and trips abroad."
However, he does devote substantial space to terrorism and his growing alarm over the al-Qaeda network as well as his efforts to get the Israelis and Palestinians to agree on a peace deal.
And unlike the current occupant of the White House, Clinton was forthcoming on what he believes to be his biggest mistake as president: appointing a special prosecutor to investigate scandals surrounding his presidency.
He wrote that Hillary Clinton disagreed with him, but that he, the harborer of a lifetime of secrets, replied, "I have nothing to hide."
And while Clinton admits one of his life goals is "becoming a good person," accepting responsibility for his failings, letting go of anger and learning to forgive, he uses his memoirs to settle some scores.
He goes after his political enemies, most notably special prosecutor Kenneth Star. He also attacks Louis Freeh, saying the onetime director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation was incompetent and turned against the White House to distract the public from lapses at his own agency.
As the book demonstrates and as Clinton himself once said, "Character is a journey not a destination."
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