Rating: 
Summary: Patronising piffle
Review: Of course, all foreigners are terribly entertaining.... so endearingly eccentric. How lucky they were to meet Ms France, who could coolly flirt with them, listen to their odd little obsessions, and smile at the hopeless inefficiency of it all, even, perhaps, become ever so slightly fond of the place before returning back to England (where of course everything works perfectly and there are never queues in supermarkets...).And she writes so extraordinarily badly! Seemingly anxious about the power of her descriptions to entertain us, she insistently chucks in her flights of fancy. It is not enough to point out that a map on the wall has blue tape covering the words 'the Falklands', Ms France must tell us of her idea of the official sent to run around stationers to by it. Tee hee. This is an immature book. With sympathetic editing, some of the promising material could have been shaped into a worthwhile book. But as it stands it lacks any of the humility that ought to inform a young foreigner writing about a foreign country in which they have only lived for a short time, and too many of the descriptions of Argentinians she meets seem to seek humour at the expense of understanding. The author may go on to do better things; those who should be truly embarrassed by it are the London press who puffed it.... but how much reliance can you put on a review in The Times?
Rating:
Summary: Where was she?
Review: Really I can't understand Mrs. France point of view. The book is full of untrue stories (the Pink House painted with pig`s blood??). Living in Buenos Aires for 30 years, authorize me to suspect that Mrs. France wrote a bizarre fantasy, or perhaps she was in other city...
Rating:
Summary: Book Fiasco
Review: The book is a poor job by a fourth rate "journalist" closest to a work of fiction and full of inconsistencies which are obvious to anybody who lived in BA. The author take bit and pieces of Argentina and try to perpetuate stereotypes which are very much in circulation among people who know nothing about Argentina.The only fair statement of the author is when she declare her inability to become a serious journalist.
Rating: 
Summary: Good writing, sweeping generalizations
Review: The writing was good and it kept my interest throughout. However, the writer paints a distorted picture of Argentines and their culture. After reading the book, those ignorant to the complexity of the Argentine identity would think that the country is a wasteland full of self-indulgent, self-centered, neurotic and melancholy brats. That is not the case. While Argentina may have an image-conscious and tabloid-reading society, those elements are not any more prevalent in other Latin American countries, namely Venezuela and Brazil (not to mention European countries, namely Spain and Italy). But Miranda France grossly exagerates the truth and sadly leaves out many of the wonderful things that have made Buenos Aires loved by many people. Grouping all porteños together and simplifying the intricacies of their identity is not only irresponsible journalism, but you get the feeling that the author missed out on quite a lot. Did she even meet any middle-class argentinos? I know many and none have ever been to therapy. Anglo-saxons will never understand what it's like to be Latin-American and the book, while entertaining, illustrates this quite clearly.
Rating:
Summary: Good writing, sweeping generalizations
Review: The writing was good and it kept my interest throughout. However, the writer paints a distorted picture of Argentines and their culture. After reading the book, those ignorant to the complexity of the Argentine identity would think that the country is a wasteland full of self-indulgent, self-centered, neurotic and melancholy brats. That is not the case. While Argentina may have an image-conscious and tabloid-reading society, those elements are not any more prevalent in other Latin American countries, namely Venezuela and Brazil (not to mention European countries, namely Spain and Italy). But Miranda France grossly exagerates the truth and sadly leaves out many of the wonderful things that have made Buenos Aires loved by many people. Grouping all porteños together and simplifying the intricacies of their identity is not only irresponsible journalism, but you get the feeling that the author missed out on quite a lot. Did she even meet any middle-class argentinos? I know many and none have ever been to therapy. Anglo-saxons will never understand what it's like to be Latin-American and the book, while entertaining, illustrates this quite clearly.
Rating: 
Summary: Funny, not so bad.
Review: This book is not as bad as some reviews says. 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: You said what?
Review: This book is untrue. After a visit to Buenos Aires, and some research, I've found that this book is non-sense. It's complete of FALSE stories. I really can't understand what happened to the writer. Perhaps she was with the wrong people?
Rating: 
Summary: A Fantastic Read
Review: This is a great, great book which portrays Bs As as it really is, flaws, particularities, & all thrown in the grab bag with the author's wry sense of humor. I think that one of the reasons that this book is so spectacular is that it mixes France's experience with historical and contemporary background on the country, which gives some insight into the why beyond many of the idiosyncracies of Bs As. I lived there for a year and have also lived in neighboring Santiago Chile and despite all of the hang-ups, bronca and general angst, especially now ( I returned in Dec 2001, when the country was on it's 3rd? president in as many weeks)-I would choose Buenos Aires and environs any day over anywhere else that I have visited or lived in Latin America-it is a beautiful city that grows on you which I think is accurately conveyed in France's book.
Rating: 
Summary: Engaging and thought-provoking travel book.
Review: Three-and-a-half stars rating, really.
I think that it is unreasonable to expect a travel book to be anything except the author's perpective on the places visited. French clearly brings her own (British) agenda to Argentina, but she also just as clearly makes an effort to move beyond that to present a balanced look at the city she was living in. I found it a good read (almost too quick) and a well-formulated one. It was worth the time that I took to read it.
Good points:
France owns her own prejudices. She is very careful to note when she was being cranky and British about something so that the reader is clear that it is her persective and not the voice of authority.
I also like that she did not try to take a sweeping 20,000 foot view of the culture, but limited her commentary to those aspects to which she had access.
Less Good Points:
She treated some subjects (the Faulkland Islands, for example) more quickly than they seemed to deserve and at times that left me with the frustrating feeling that there was more to say about a subject but she had already moved on to the next point. I do not think that it needed to be much longer, but a little more filling in areas that got short shrift would have been good.
At times her writing was a little too precious and tried a little too hard to make all her moments meaningful. One of the things that makes a writer like Chatwin so great is that he does not try to connect the dots for the reader and is very sparse in the way that he handles detail.
The final very best point is that I enjoyed reading it and it inspired a desire to know more about the subject-- which is, I suppose, the ultimate point. Recommended if you like travel books.
Rating:
Summary: Racist, inaccurate account by a spoiled little brat
Review: While Ms. France has some things right about Buenos Aires, other comments that appear in her book are grossly inaccurate (Where did she get the information that the Pink House was painted with pigs' blood, or that the FM Tango was imposed by Peron? This is all wrong). Besides, her childish hints at erotica with Argentine men lead nowhere, and her comments about Paraguayan workers in the streets are nothing but racist. You could make a book like this one about every city in the world, if you wanted to. It would be as hateful and inaccurate as this one.
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