It's a fast read. But I could have done with more finance and less sex. It also makes use of lots of "composite characters" and fake names, which makes you wonder what is actually real/actually happened.

[potential spoiler] Also, it could have used a little more research. At the end, the author mentions a few rumors about what happened to one of the main characters. Really? You are an author and you can't actually do the research/journalism to find out what happened to the guy?

I didn’t care for all the cussing and promiscuity. The promiscuity is part of the story, but the cussing could be reduced or cut out completely in my opinion. Would be 4 stars otherwise. The story is interesting, and the writer keeps you engaged and explains complicated financial transactions in a way that you can understand.

Great book for financial read, but as for the fiction about the character, I don't truly beleive it. Turned out to be great for a 24 year old..millions, beautiful wife who he truly loved, great house. Either its all BS or life really is too good for a few chosen once.

The following review has been copied from http://behnamriahi.tumblr.com

Ugly Americans, written by Ben Mezrich and published by Morrow, is a non-fiction excursion into the life of American expatriates buying up stock in Japan, told from the point-of-view of John Malcolm, former college football star gone stockbroker. When John first finds himself in Japan, after his Ivy League All-Star football team romps the Japanese players, he meets Dean Carney, a mysterious savant in the world of high-finance. It isn’t long before John graduates and he’s in need of a real job when Carney reaches out to him, inviting John to Osaka—only John doesn’t know what he’s getting into. The more money he makes on the Japanese stock market (the Nikkei), the more John is exposed to sex clubs and yakuza manipulation. Even after falling in love with a Tokyo mob daughter, John overcomes the market to win big, only to discover there’s more to his boss than even John can comprehend.

This was a parting gift from an ex-co-worker—one whom I shared quite a bit in common with. Given that not many of our co-workers actually read books (fucking unbelievable), he and I shared a connection that grew as a result of this book and continues to grow to this day. At first, I was suspicious, as I am of all gifts, but have come see why he felt this book made a good fit for me, especially in regard to other books I’ve read this year in the vein of Americans writing about Japan. Only, the way the book affected me turned out far different than I think even my co-worker intended—as I combed though the pages, I began to uncover corruptions in my own work-place that left a poor taste in my mouth while at the same time, the book inspired me to step out of my comfort zone in an effort to make it big, some way, some how. I’ll let you know how that goes.

I’m very wary about calling this nonfiction. Yes, this memoir was meticulously researched. Yes, we do often step out of John’s point-of-view to see as the author sees. Yes, it says nonfiction on the book jacket. However, all of these facts aside, this is a story handed to Mr. Mezrich second-hand. He wasn’t there to experience the details, but that shouldn’t make any difference right? Except these experiences cannot be double-checked—we have to take them at face value because every character in this book has a phony name. As it turns out, in order to protect the person representing John Malcolm and his business associates, every character in the book was given a pseudonym and reinvented physical characteristics, thus making this story no different than any other highly researched work of fiction. To call this nonfiction would be to say that On The Road or Slaughterhouse-Five are works of nonfiction, which just isn’t true—at least not for the most part. And while I am open to accepting what the book jacket tells me, I’ve read an awful lot of blurbs about the quality of various authors that just aren’t true. For instance, Hillias J. Martin of the New York Public Library, Twilight did not have the reader (me) dying to sink my teeth into it. Fuckin’ liars.

Okay, okay, back to the book at hand. John Malcolm is reminiscent of numerous characters exploring the great, wide, Japan, including elements of our protagonists from Shogun or Hokkaido Highway Blues, that quirky, cynical point-of-view of a man open to discovery but hesitant about what he might find. However, he’s also got a little bit of American Psycho in him, though that might just be because of the luxury. Either way, Malcolm’s a memorable character—I remember his name better than I do the author’s! Ha ha. Seriously though, it doesn’t surprise me that the book is labeled as nonfiction in the sense that the character feels real, dynamic, and interesting. He’s flawed and he knows it, but he makes the most of his situation anyway—even when poised against an opposite, like Dean Carney. Opposites are often used in fiction to portray two moral extremes: good and evil. Sometimes, it isn’t about morality as much as just expanding on two extremes, like Nick and Jay in The Great Gatsby. The extremes represented by Malcom and Carney are a little more ambiguous however—Malcom is a kid from Jersey who can’t even afford his own suit while Carney is, well, we don’t know actually. He gives us glimpses into his past, but Carney’s a liar, so don’t cross your fingers that it’ll be true. What we do know is their priorities—Malcolm doesn’t fear the market, but he’s afraid of a butterfly knife and he seems entirely too aware of how much money he’s brokering, while Carney doesn’t have any sense of empathy apart from his love for the money that Malcolm makes for him. It boils down to one, succinct and ironic difference between the characters: their idea of the American dream. After all, they’re both American boys in business, and even though they happen to be in Japan, their dreams both differ greatly and as a result, the relationship between the characters creates the tension of the memoir.

The overall plot of the novel is primarily focused on that conflict, but it’s broken up by intermissions from the author as he chronicles his immersion into Malcolm’s life, both to inform the audience and draw a sense of perspective between the point-of-view of a normal, everyday journalist against high-finance cowboy, once against playing the opposites for us. But our journalist is telling us Malcolm’s story and so he automatically empathizes with Malcolm, especially as he puts himself in harm’s way to understand the harm that Malcolm risked on himself. It adds depth to Malcolm’s character and keeps the audience subdued with a sense of reality as we wander modern Japan on Malcolm’s shoulder, making every setting feel like it’s fresh and every change feel drastic and necessarily dramatic.

But what exactly is a hedge-fund and how does one wrangle it? Our journalist takes care of that too—he drops the necessary information as Malcolm learns it. Malcolm, after all, only puttered his way through Econ I before arriving in Osaka, so as he does anything, he’s pretty much learning about it himself, exploring the market as he explores Japan. The market, in itself, is a facet of Japan that’s untapped in prose but we get to explore it as John does his first time. The sense of newness going into that situation keeps the audience from being alienated and wondering what the fuck high-finance even means, instead maintaining monetary terms in plain, simple, and easy enough language for someone who doesn’t know shit about it, like Malcolm, to not only follow, but to grow expert in. Now I’m not saying I came out of this novel knowing how to work the stock market so I don’t even need a fucking job, but I sure as fuck know what a hedge-fund is now.

Carney and Malcolm aren’t the only recurring characters though—we see a lot of names and faces, but the two most important ones are Akari and Sayo. Akari, a half-Japanese Ivy League grad, is Malcolm’s sempai (and that’s about all I remember from watching anime in high school) who becomes Malcolm’s best friend and Sayo is a yakuza princess that Malcolm starts dating. Because these two characters tend to get the most page space in Malcolm’s life apart from Carney, Mezrich paints for us how Malcolm didn’t move to Japan to simply make money, but to immerse himself in the culture, adding yet another layer to our not-so-tragic hero. Now, I’m not calling bullshit, but Akari only some-what seems like he’s actually fucking Japanese, but it doesn’t matter—it’s what he represents to the story as a whole, to further draw an opposite between Malcolm, open and friendly to the Japanese world, and Carney, who sees everyone (especially Japanese businessmen and women) as objects.

Fiction or nonfiction, I loved the shit out of this book. Exciting, informative, and a little inspiring to boot. It’s funny—I was on the train heading home from work and a young banker, with his banker entourage in button-down shirts that cost more than my rent, asked me what I thought about it. He nodded and smiled when I said it was an accurate depiction of high-finance, not dumbed down for the layman, and then he zoned out of the conversation when I described it’s literary value. For all I know, that motherfucker could have been John Malcolm.