Ugly Americans : The True Story of the Ivy League Cowboys Who Raided the Asian Markets for Millions

Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but hard to follow at times
Review: I enjoyed Bringing Down The House much more. This was difficult to follow without some background information about the stock market.

Rating:
Summary: might have made a decent magazine article
Review: ...but there really wasn't enough material here for a book.

"Mission Impossible, The Heart of Darkness on speed" is what we're promised in chapter two.

But the core of the story is index-based arbitrage at a computer screen, and to keep that from being as boring as it sounds, Mezrich has to keep throwing distractions at us.

Also, amid the flurry of phony names, phony jobtitle, phony descriptive details, it isn't clear what, if anything, we are supposed to take this book as documenting. The Leeson crisis as seen by the peripherally involved?

Rating:
Summary: Good read; could have used more technical details
Review: Although Mezrich embellishes the characters enough to make an exciting semi-fiction story, I was very interested when the actual topics of hedge funds and arbitrage were breached. Yet, Mezrich seemed to make little effort to explain these in anything more than basic terms. Considering that the book is based on the exploits of high finance, I wish there was more in-depth analysis. Still, it is an intriguing book and a fast-paced read.

Rating:
Summary: Fiction?? Fact?? or Just plain bad writing!!!
Review: First off i was a huge fan of Liars Poker. That being said Mezrich drops the ball consistently in this book and these are some the biggest problems I haven in no particular order.

1) Trying to create ficticious characters that are painfully unconvincing. His main character had a full ride athletic scholarship at Princton. Ivy's dont give scholarships.

2) Not living up to the title... if he was not going to talk about sex, drugs, and the mafia it would have been refreshing to hear the details of the "biggest deal in the history of finance"... and it wasnt by the way... heard of George Soros?

3) Fiction or Artisitic licence? i dont know but Mezrich "borrows" everything from the conversations to the plot from Liars poker.
examples: "Always know when to walk away" & "Always have an exhit strategy"; both houses get wrecked; the girlfriend experiences of the main characters are almost identical

4) Unrealistic. Finally, he is working as the main characters PR person instead of giving the reader an honest picture of the real situation. He paints the main character as a saint who never has sex, never trades on insider information, and never does anything that is illegal, while he is entirely surronded by it in both his social life and his buisness one.

Suggestions, if you want to change the characters and setting significantly to wear the book looses some of its non-fiction status, at least tell it like it was, filthy. Dont kiss the main characters ass, and tell us a little about finance. please.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I also read Bringing Down the House and if there's one thing I like more than gambling, it's the market so I thought I'd love this book. Unfortunately, it's basically the same book with a slightly different setting. You've got the same protagonist - a good guy from a middle-class background and a top school who gets involved in a shady world and eventually breaks free from it. You've got the older "puppet-master" character who the others both respect and resent. And a similar supporting cast of kids caught up in their new-found riches and fast lifestyle. And let's not forget the underworld element - the menacing guys lurking in the shadows who threaten to end the dream for our hero.

So it's the same, which still would have been fine with me if Mezrich had given us some of the great details behind the workings of the markets that he gave about the mechanics of card counting. But he was much more interested in talking about illicit sex and Japanese mobsters - which are cool too but there have got the be better books on those subjects if that's what you want to read.

BDTH was so promising - I hope next time Mezrich gets off his butt and writes about something other than what one of his ivy league buddies did after college.

Rating:
Summary: A Good Read
Review: I dont know how accurate some of the minor details of this book are as some have mentioned "full ride to ivy league schools etc.) but regardless I really like this authors writing style and usually read his books all the way through because they are very well done as far as capturing and keeping your attention.

Rating:
Summary: An Interesting Read
Review: I first saw this book at a bookstore in Newark Airport but it wasn't until I got back to Toronto that I ordered it from Amazon.

This book read more like a fictional novel. But that was fine with me. I'm always in the look out for good storytelling, with facts or no facts, and this book did just that. But I must admit I did buy this book in the hope of getting a glimpse into the Asian markets and how they function and thrill the many traders that live and die by the Buy and Sell buttons on their computer terminals. After reading it, I'm left with more questions than answers, but that's ok. It's something I'll be exploring on my own...

Pick up this book if you want a good storytelling and a trip down Japan's red light district that is the backdrop of
this book. A district where Ugly Americans burn their money and Japanese salarymen pick their girls and drink till the morning light. Desire is desire wherever you go.

I'm going to be ordering Mezrich's previous book, "Bringing Down the House." Looking forward to another good storytelling.




Rating:
Summary: cheap knock-off of movie "Boiler Room"
Review: The author is no F. Scott Fitzgerald, and this book will never be considered for the Pulizer, or any other major literary award. This is one case where the movie was better than the book. The movie "Boiler Room" may have been plagiarized in this novel; simply change the names from New York and Long Island to Tokyo and Kobe and you have most of the same story: some people involved with finance are corrupt. You're probably better off buying the book, "When Genius Failed : The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management" by ROGER LOWENSTEIN.


Rating:
Summary: Entertaining account of the life of a professional trader
Review: The best way to describe this book is a work of fiction that is loosely correlated to real life events. The book is lacking in technical details and is not recommended as a handbook for how to arbitrage Nikkei futures. Of the several hundred pages in the text, only a small handful are dedicated to the mechanics of arbitrage and trading. The description of trading is very generic and does not provide any insights to anyone with even a passing knowledge of finance.

Nonetheless, like his last book, this one was entertaining. He could have fleshed out his main characters with a little more relish, so that the reader could feel more empathy with their stories. Overall, an entertaining narrative if approached as such. If you are hoping to learn the intricacies of trading, then expect to be disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: Worth the READ
Review: Unlike a few of the reviews I read, I really liked this book. Perhaps the other reviewers are too close to the subject (or perhaps see themselves in the pages...hmm) or lack the ability to get engrossed in a book. This book is a fast read because it keeps you interested from beginning to end and it peaks your interest into learning more about the subject. I actually purchased this book as a present and the recipient thought it was a terrific book! That's what made me read it. And I have to say... he's not an easy guy to please... especially when it comes to literature. It's worth the time and the money.