Rating: 
Summary: Funny, not so bad.
Review: ...May be is not entirely accurate, but you should keep in mind the period in Argentina (1993-1994, the highest point of the Menem era) and the kind of people she had met (upper middle class). Many observations are really true (bank employees smoking on your face, lng queues for everything, the "cafecito" tradition, the "desaparecidos" stuff, etc.).
Many argentine people could be upset by this book, but it had its moments. You can't take it as sacred word, but it's not "only a bunch of lies" as someone said.
Read it, and read another books on Buenos Aires. And if you can, come to experiment by yourself!!
Rating: 
Summary: Trashy
Review: A perfect image of a frustrated writer. Its amazing how decadent a person can get in searching easy money. It is absolutely clear that Mrs. France was a tourist with no idea of the local life and their customs. The book is a bunch of lies and nonsenses.
Rating:
Summary: Do not buy this if you want to learn about Buenos Aires
Review: After living for many years in Buenos Aires, I've been living in the US for the last 5, I feel with some right to give an opinion about this book. All through the pages you can feel the bad intentions this girl had when wrote it. All the experiences she says she went through are unlikely to happen in everyday life in Buenos Aires. She expresses she lived a nightmare ("bad times") in one of the most friendly and beautiful cities on earth. I have lived in many places around the globe and I haven't found a place where I could have all the fun, make all the friends and fall in love so deeply with a city like in Buenos Aires. I am even planning on moving back there soon. Although with all the problems and contradictions any big city have, is one of the best places to live I found. Beautiful, charming, friendly, cosmopolitan... Is almost stupid thinking that the "unhappy" everyday events she tells, are specific BA problems. Last night I went to the grocery store (here in the US) and I have to stay in line for almost 30 minutes to pay. The phone, electric, etc.. bills I get here are exactly the same I used to get there. Apparently she was trying to meet and get involve with the most strange characters in town. That's not every day BA. It seems like she was in another city, some imaginary place made up buy her mind, all this peppered with a good dose of arrogancy and intentional disaproval. On the other hand she is not well informed at all about specific data about the city and its history. The book is over-charged with inaccurate information. I don't think Buenos Aires is the place for this girl (France), so, don't come back!!!!
For the rest of people that are interested in learning about Buenos Aires, do not waste your time and money reading this . A trip to Buenos Aires will take this book to pieces. God bless Buenos Aires!!!!+
Rating:
Summary: Poor and prejudiced generalizations about a complex society
Review: After reading this book, I remained with the impression that the author had, indeed, a bad time in Buenos Aires, and decided to take revenge. The same thing might happend to any tourist visiting any other 10-millions inhabitants metropolis like Buenos Aires, with a rich and complex cultural life. The question is... who should be blamed! In my opinion, she picked some pieces of the reality that fitted better to her previous prejudices and preconceptions. What dissapointed me particularly, was her derogatory style to refer to the common people she met, in many cases close to an inacceptable aristocratic disdain. Besides, the fatal flow of the book is that it is full of inexactitudes, distorting exaggerations and blatant lies. Just one representative example: the author claims that the electricity, gas or telephone bills are some sort of unintelligible collection of numbers and addresses, impossible to understand...In fact they are not different at all from those I am now receiving in the US, or those I remember from Germany (where I lived some years ago). In any case, her difficulties may have arised from her poor understanding of them (I guesss she would suffer a lot filing for taxes in the US, then!). Oddly enough, many comments about the city and its inhabitants sounded to me like the kind of comments you could hear from upper-middle class uneducated argentinians (portenios) coming back from a 20-days 19-cities tour in Europe: deep sociological insight from short and primitive comunication with bartenders, taxi drivers and hotel clerks... In summary, I found the book very pejorative and poorly written. A good critic to Buenos Aires and the portenios deserves much better, starting with a better knowledge of the culture and the history of Argentina.
Rating: 
Summary: "Mi Buenos Aires Querido!"
Review: An American University student, I spent this past Fall 99 semester in Buenos Aires. I travelled all over South America and now, being back at school, I decided to re-live my experiences by reading Miranda France's BAD TIMES IN BUENOS AIRES. It was absolutely incredible. I lived in the same general area as the author, with an upper-class Argentine family in Recoleta... France's descriptive narratives hit home as I turned each page, my head spinning back to those days I now long for. My experiences in South America cannot be put into words and I feel France did a wonderful job maintaining the deep Argentine sentiments in a dignified manner. From discussions of los desaparacidos to the depressed colectivo drivers; endless nights in cafes sipping tea, cafe con leche, or un submarino... nibbling a medialuna or dancing the night away at B.A. News... As a college student I am sure my naieve impressions do not even compare to that of a professional like France; however, I am so pleased with all I have gotten out of those four months and the next chance I get, I will be back on a plane to Buenos Aires. France said it best when she wrote, "I know Buenos Aires well. My friends are here; it could be my home. I love it and I hate it. I can't live here, but, wherever else I live, I'll always feel the lack of it"--pg. 187. I thank Miranda France for her words and Argentina--I'll be back! :) --Melissa B. Marion American University Class of'01
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: At first I thought this book was about a different city, I found it completely unrealistic and comrcial, really disappointing. Miss France unless you lost money in the stock Market you don't need to write this lousy things to make some cash. Don't ruin your reputation, if you have any, writting things that are far from the true. This is a terrible and unrealistic view of a City showing only it's worst.
Rating:
Summary: A truthful, funny well written book
Review: Being British, having a father from the UK and a mother from Argentina I decided to venture to Argentina for a 6 week holiday since I hadn't seen my mother for 10 years because she had returned to Argentina after she was denyed custody of me through the courts in the UK when my parents were divorced because she was a seriously psycho paranoic and screamed at everyone possible that the "Malvinas were Argentine" (!) I loved Argentina at first and had been round all the tourist joints and was overwhelmed about how beautiful the girls were, the sunshine, and how I could get into any club and get sold a beer in any cafe at any time being 15!! I decided to stay a few more weeks and got my dad to write the visa permision. Accidently though he handed my custody completly over to my mother and the beggining of my nightmare begin. My mother wouldn't let me go back to the UK because she said that everything in Argentina was better, the education, the democracy, the culture, the weather, the food etc and that the UK was evil (I mentioned that she wasn't well mentally earlier and she sufferd from paranoia and other things that havn't been defined yet, I call it the Buenos Aires Sindrome which worsens any other mental or underlying mental disorder). Anyway I was to find out that I couldn't leave the country untill I was 21 because the law there is that you are a minor or child untill that age and cannot travel anywhere without both your parents permition, lovely...considering that they didn't think twice about sending 17 year old kids to fight in the Falkland War! So five years it was to be, god know how I survived it, with my friends and familly expecting me home after 2 months I was all of a sudden stuck in a tiny aparment block in a tower of 13 floors in the Caballito neighbourhood with a violent paranioc mother who had the hobbie of fighting and insulting everyone possible. I was put in a secondry school with hardly any knowledge of Spanish. I don't want to talk bad about the peaple there because they were very friendly and did all they could to make me feel confortable, I was still completly stressed out coming to terms with adapting to a completly new life. Well the five years slowly passed, I experienced everything that Miranda did and more because I was often sleeping on the streets since the the house got too violent and learnt to deal cocaine with the street kids and gangs in the hood (remember I'm a complete gringo from the UK in a post war country so gaining respect and acceptance didn't come to me in a one-er) since my mother didn't let me get a proper job because all my time was to go in to studying. Once I got older I moved in to the glam club scene rubbing shoulders with the disgustingly superficial and anorexic "farandula" Miranda mentions and continued dealing with the dodgiest of caracters I've ever met. I even dated an ex-"Miss Argentina"!..whatever that means, actually her father was German and living in Patagonia, dodgy. More could have been written in the book about how Argentine Government gives proteccion to ex Nazzis hiding out in Patagonia I think. Well I eventually made it back home for the first time in August 2000 after taking my mother to court after 5 years of constant fisical and verbal violance and one after a lengthy 6 month court case (that should have been only a month or so long) but that's the justice system there for u. Miranda likes to think she had it hard but she is a bit of a cry baby I think she lived in good conditions and she could of left anytime she wanted, and I think she lists lot's of true points with precise observations all the way through with a wonderfull witty style of writing. The chapter on psycho-analisys is great and oh so true. I understand her completly though and know that a visit to BA was a very hard experience for countless expats, most that I knew anyway. But still Argentina is a wonderfull country with lots of friendly peaple, the only problem is finding it and then. I've met some of the nicest peaple ever (and worst) in Buenos Aires and had the best times of my life there (and worst!) so like all big city you've got to go out see the positive side of things because there is too much crap and scum around to be realistic and down to earth like us brits are he he. Not much was written about the football, the football stadium is the "polvo" or orgasm of Argentina society as one friend told me and Miranda should've been to some games I think. You see football is one of the few things that Argentina is actually good at so the peaple have special pride and confidence surrounding all things football, another friend told me to be an "hincha" of Boca Juniors Football Club was more than just being a fan, Boca was a feeling,.. oh and he was a shrink! Again, great book. And Miranda if u ever read this, you're lucky I can't write because if I could write properly and express myself like u can, my book about my bad times there would way out sell yours, so smile, u managed to cash in with your "bad times"!!
Rating: 
Summary: Expectations Fulfilled? For Sure!
Review: Buenos Aires is one of the best cities I ever lived in my life. Kind and hospitable people live there. Recommended. It is beautiful to read this kind of books where one can understand the frustrations and insecurities of a person by just reading it. She is undoubtly a professional writer. Ms France has a crystal clear writing. Way to go!
Rating:
Summary: Simply delightful!
Review: Delightful, very elegantly written, one of the best travel books I have ever read, a must for any disillusioned traveller (tourists, keep off!) who wants to visit Argentine's soul before its evocative places.
Rating:
Summary: deliberately untrue.
Review: first of all i have to make clear that despite what my name may suggest, i am not argentinian. i have lived in bs aires for a long time, and have had therefore the opportunity to get in touch with its culture and its partcicular issues. i also know that those facts do not escape to anyone who has done a little research. thus, the only conclusion that comes to my mind is that miss france wrote her inexact, offensive and racist lines with the deliberate purpose of being a lie. who knows what kind of personal resentment she has for the people of buenos aires.
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