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A first hand account of what happened during the financial crisis. Not only do we understand how and why this happened by reading this book, we also get to understand the internal dynamics of Wall Street. And the egos and human emotions that drive the world's most complicated financial institutions.
The author has certainly done tremendous research and the book comes out like a first person narrative. Although he never reveals his sources, the book comes out as very credible as easily digestible.
It might get too confusing in the middle a little bit as suddenly there are too many deals and incidents happening at the same time, and there are a plethora of candidates looking at you from nowhere. But surviving that is not that difficult.
The author has certainly done tremendous research and the book comes out like a first person narrative. Although he never reveals his sources, the book comes out as very credible as easily digestible.
It might get too confusing in the middle a little bit as suddenly there are too many deals and incidents happening at the same time, and there are a plethora of candidates looking at you from nowhere. But surviving that is not that difficult.
informative
tense
medium-paced
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inspiring
fast-paced
This book suffers from having both too narrow and too wide a scope. To limit the narrative to the period between the Bear Stearns sale (March 2008) to TARP (October 2008) is like entering the story in the final chapter -- there's a man on the ledge, we're just never really clear on how he got there. Simultaneously, the overall story of Wall Street includes so many actors and institutions, it makes Game of Thrones look like a Dr. Suess book. Trying to track the individual actions of all of these people through overlapping discussions and trades is almost physically impossible -- making much of the book confusing and tedious.
I suspect Mr. Sorkin was aiming for an Eichenwald narrative, akin to [b:Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story|29519|Conspiracy of Fools A True Story|Kurt Eichenwald|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1320542577s/29519.jpg|1160426] but it just doesn't work with this many characters.
Also, much like Game of Thrones, it turns out that many of the leads are blithering idiots, making the whole thing strangely unsatisfying.
I suspect Mr. Sorkin was aiming for an Eichenwald narrative, akin to [b:Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story|29519|Conspiracy of Fools A True Story|Kurt Eichenwald|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1320542577s/29519.jpg|1160426] but it just doesn't work with this many characters.
Also, much like Game of Thrones, it turns out that many of the leads are blithering idiots, making the whole thing strangely unsatisfying.
It was a bit too much literal narration, I think the story could have been built without the excruciating details on the traveling and phone calls back and forth.
All in all, a great view of what the world of high finance looks like. While I was desperately bored at points, I overall enjoyed the book.
All in all, a great view of what the world of high finance looks like. While I was desperately bored at points, I overall enjoyed the book.
Sorkin gives an excellent and extremely detailed retelling of how close America came to the brink of financial collapse. An eye opening story that is honestly frightening as the light is shed, well worth the time for readers looking to grasp a better understanding of our 08 fiasco and current ramifications.
Decent job of laying out the players and interactions with sheer voluminousness but Sorkin doesn't really go into any depth on the underlying causes of the crisis. Plus the writing itself strains so heavily for drama that it's hard to tell what's real and what's Sorkin embellishing details for effect (for instance, at a meeting of basically every relevant government official and Wall Street CEO, Tim Geithner says something ominous just as a train rushes by and rattles the whole building).