I love Ben Mezrich's writing style. He takes stories that seem like they have no business being told and tells them in a way that makes easy to understand. Ugly Americans was no different, as I became interested in a subject (Asian Financial Markets), that I had never even thought of before reading this book.

The one minor complaint I have about this book (and all books based on a true story) is that you never know how much of this is real and how much of it was embellished to tell a better story.

Mezrich´s account of the financial deals that were taking place in the Asian markets in the 90´s - complete with fast cars, luxe departments and prostitutes - is a real page turner...witty, articulate, and obviously written for a popular audience...this book makes "Wall Street" look like child´s play! I loved it!

Racist and devoid of conscience

though it screams fiction

Recommended by my friend Sara, who I met (was good friends with) in Tokyo when we lived there 1993-1996. Her husband was an investment banker there and we knew (of) lots of these guys. So this story brought back some memories of our time in Japan and the story was entertaining. Yes, these macho investment banker dudes seemed to make tons of $ and could be cocky as hell and there were some stories of them getting into trouble so this book ( a true story) was believable.

Ben previously wrote Bringing Down the House; a book about a group of maths geeks who take on the Las Vegas casinos by team playing with a gambling system and making a killing at poker.

In Ugly Americans, Ben turns his attention to hedge funds exploiting the economic collapse of Japan in the 1990s. There are many similarities with the books:

– they both are written in the same style, paced with a future film adaptation in mind

– they both alternate chapters of action with ‘expert testimony

– they both claim to be true, however I have my doubts (names have been changed to protect the innocent et cetera)
- They're both ripping yarns, but I feel like I am reading fiction, not Hollywood's version of the truth.

Detailed, fascinating story that open my view to the financial thriller genre.

Best book of the year so far. Really great read. About a trader at the start of his career in Japan.

While the book is based around financial markets it’s not really about financial markets which makes it a really easy digestible read. Gripping story with lots of excitement.

As well as a really cool peak into Japanese nightlife culture and culture around sex. Highly recommend.

Higb four stars. Am still assessing if this is worth five stars. The subject matter fits with my interests, for sure. Its narrative is also nice. (Also you know that meme where "Place = silence; place, Japan = applause"? Seems apropos here). It's just that the formula is quite obvious now after five Mezrich books that I have to stop and think whether rating more than one Mezrich book as five stars makes sense, given that he is basically telling the same story. I'll probably recalibrate the rest of the Mezrich bibliography one day.

A former American football player, turned gaijin in Japan with no experience encounters a stranger that offers him an opportunity to become a stock trader with a big budget company.

The story is part foreigner discovers Japanese culture, part love story, part financial success story, and all in all a wild tale involving all the above.

Quick read focusing on a young Princeton grad who takes a trading job in Japan, and ends up running the biggest trade in the world, or so it says. The story itself was written to sound like fiction, except for occasional interludes where the author appears to interview someone in the story. These descriptions of interviews were odd -- it felt like the author really wanted to be part of the story. Maybe this was his way to get into the subsequent movie based on this book -- the writing felt very movie-like. A lot of the action is not really explained well, but given we're talking derivatives the explanation might be too complex for the intended audience and pacing of the book. I listened on audio narrated by the author. The audiobook had strangely positioned musical "bumps", but not around when the action went to a Mezrich interview - those just showed up with no warning and really caused confusion. In this case I would have preferred a professional narrator, as Mezrich's voice didn't imply "cowboy" as much as "journalist".

This would be an interesting read right now as the house of cards that is Wall Street crashes around our ears. I have been listening to This American Life and Planet Money on the American financial crisis and can't help but thinking of this book. It is appalling and frightening how the system rewards people taking giant risks with other people's money, and the kind of jerks that are out there and only too happy to profit off of it.