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: 2 Stars if you are in the Industry 4 if you are not
Review: I had to read this book, because I know Dean Carney and Bill Sammon from real life. Unlike Michael Lewis of Liar's Poker, Ben simply doesn't understand the business. Simple things like scalping the Nikkei (index arb), index additions, are very mundane and simply strategies. Ben attempts to make John and Dean more than they are to sensationalize the characters, and in the process losses all street (wall street that is) credibility. But if you are in the index arb community, or are part of the princeton wrestling/football crowd, or was an expat in Japan. I recommend it. Otherwise, it's a decent piece of ficition. As a side note. The real Dean Carney is a great guy, and actually lives in upstate NY now with his beautiful wife and kids. The real retirement place is not Bermuda! How can one do index arb in Asian markets while based in Bermuda. Just say Hawaii, you are not going to give anything away.
Rating:
Summary: Weak attempt to cover interesting material
Review: I was a fan of BDTH, but there are several significant problems with this book. I work at a hedge fund that invests in Asian markets and the discussion of "hedge funds" and Asian markets is superficial, at best. Please don't read this book and think that you have any relavent knowledge of either of those topics. Secondly, there are little details that the author did not research very well and that just destroy his credibility. For example, Ivy League schools do not give athletic scholarships. It is one of the conditions of being in the Ivy League athletic conference, a conference that prides itself on "scholar athletes." For this reason it would be difficult to get a "full ride" for football at Princeton. Another example, foreigners are not allowed to rent cars in Bermuda. That is why everyone rides those vespas around everywhere. I know these are minor details, but they destory the credibility of the author. When you change the details of someone's story you have to do the research to make sure the new persona makes sense. Lucky Mezrich isn't creating cover stories for a CIA spy, or they would surely be dead. Finally, I think the discussion of the sex trade is relevant to the story, but somewhat gratuitous and cliche.
Rating:
Summary: Just Ugly
Review: I was excited to read this book: 1) the same author as the compelling Bringing Down the House, and 2) a plot about hedge funds -- a topic of personal and professional interest to me. The excitement dwindled fast.
Ben Mezrich is a very average writer. He tries too hard at times to describe a different world, only to lose all crediblity in the eyes of those actually familiar with that world. He doesn't trust the imagination (or intelligence) of his reader, whom he constantly talks down -- perhaps a Harvard-learned trait.
Mezrich needs to get over his lovefest for Ivy league schools and their students. People who attend the Ivies are smart, but so too are the students of another 50 or so US institutions. It gets sickening after a while to read his constant, self-congratulatory fawning over the Ivies. (For the record, I have met far fewer people in the hedge fund world from the Ivies than I have from schools like UVA, Michigan, and Chicago.)
The plot of Ugly Americans seems very forced. If someone had told me this story over dinner, I certainly wouldn't have felt compelled to turn it into a book or a movie. The details don't hold together at all, and even if they did, they wouldn't be fascinating either to those versed or unversed with hedge fund strategies.
Overall, this book didn't disappoint me strictly because of Mezrich's superficial understanding or explanation of hedge fund strategies. It disappointed me because it is poorly written and weakly characterized. It disappointed me because it wasted my scarcest resource, free time. It disappointed me because I really did enjoy BDTH, but now my view of that compelling read is tarnished too.
Rating:
Summary: a well written and entertaining work...
Review: I went to school with the protagonist of this story, so I probably have a very different perspective than a lot of the prior negative reviewers...firstly, people need to understand that this is loosely based on real facts and characters...it is based in the mid-late 90's, so prior reviewers crying about a lack of detail regarding the 80's should learn how to read book covers...many of the subplots were real, although details were changed for obvious reasons...this is not, nor was it meant to be a treatise on arbitraging the Japanese markets...the intent was always to focus on the characters, not the markets or actual trades...it is a book about an extraordinary opportunity offered to a select few, who literally changed the financial landscape in Asia...for those reviewers crying about a lack of credible details, maybe a "Random Walk Down Wall Street" would be better suited to your arrogant and egocentric tastes...for those who want a super fast beach read for this summer, this book delivers...also read "Bringing Down the House"...
Rating: 
Summary: Page Turner.. Fantastic!
Review: If you liked Bringing Down the House, you will LOVE Ugly Americans. I couldnt put it down. Mezrich has the ability to suck you right in and leaves you wanting more. Its hard to find a good place to stop and put the book down because you just want to keep reading. He is a great story teller. A definitely highly recommended book... i see a movie in the works!
Rating:
Summary: Liar's Poker meets Memoirs of a Gheisha
Review: If you want to learn exactly how 26 year old adrenalin cowboys made BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, this is the book to read. It takes you on a journey through the big city lights of Tokyo and the provincial town of Osaka, all the while tracing the path of young John Malcolm, a Princeton grad who chanced his life and future on the nikke wave, while his friends were busy on Wall Street, in the grind of the 90's US market. Mezrich masterfully develops and weaves in the story of the romance between beautiful Sayo, a daughter of a Japanese TONY SOPRANNO, and his main character, Malcolm. THIS IS THE DEFINING BEACH BOOK OF THE SUMMER, as I quote Bellafonte from the style section of the NY TIMES, Mezrich writes what men want to read!
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful!!!Get your First Edition quickly
Review: Intelligent, informative high-financed true life story that reads like the best of Clancy or Grisham. Ben Mezrich has created, perfected and repeated his new genre of taking readers into financial worlds and other cultures we only know from the surface and revealing them in the most understandable and interesting manner. Through the eyes of John Malcolm we enter the world of Southeast Asia arbitrage and business culture where sex is an expected and integral part of Japanese high finance and is as casual and ubiquitous as a California power lunch. This was a time when 27 year old, Ivy League cowboys traded with financial sums that would dwarf some state budgets and could, as well as did, collapse some of the oldest and most respected banks when the traders instincts failed. Malcolm uses the same intelligence, risk-taking behavior and natural athletic ability and instinct that made him a star on the football field to move him adroitly through this field of high-finance culminating in a financial deal that is legendary. This is a story no one else has told and is told in a way no one else can tell. Collectors should get their first editions soon. And, yes, I am portly and square-shouldered with too firm a handshake, but my billfold is not a lingerie case.
Rating:
Summary: the crichton/lewis for the next generation
Review: it's been about 8 years since i picked up "liar's poker" in the airport in narita and devoured it completely on the ride home. i think mezrich has now taken the baton and is bringing to light some of the most incredible "modern robber-barron" stories to date (the other story being "bringing down the house" -- the tale of the mit schooled black jack team that used group card counting strategy to take down almost every major casino in the united states). what really comes through in UA is the characters, and the complex emotional situations they are required to face. this is not a book about technical analysis of stocks and bonds -- it is about human nature (greed, lust, love, trust) under the most extenuating circumstances (halfway across the world, betting with billions of dollars). take my word for it, you will not be disappointed in this book.
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