Following Mezrich’s excellent page-turner, Bringing Down the House, I had high hopes for Ugly Americans: The True Story of the Ivy League Cowboys Who Raided the Asian Markets for Millions. While Mezrich’s writing style has definitely improved — I had minor issues with House — his storytelling faltered in this work. There was an interesting story to be told here, but Mezrich failed to assemble it in a compelling — let alone believable — way like he did with House. I’ll grant that the stories he chooses to cover are challenging because the people involved typically don’t want to be identified. And so Mezrich is forced to create an alternate reality of names, places, events, and dates while preserving the essential qualities of what really happened. Where he succeeded famously with House, he falters with Ugly Americans. The characters were not believable, and it seemed like Mezrich simply didn’t have enough real details to tell the interesting story. Instead, the pages were padded with excursions to Kabukicho, Tokyo’s immense red-light district (ooh-la-la!), motorcycle races and crashes (oh my!), and an anemic love story (gag!). For me, the story lacked credibility and never coalesced.

For additional comments on books I’ve read, check out my reading list.

This entry was posted by Steve on Sunday, November 27th, 2005 at 9:33 am and is filed under Entertainment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.