Customer Reviews

All I Could Get: A Novel

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Im not sure what book the negatives read. Lasser's writing is a breath of fresh air from the overwritten mamoth novels of the "MS Word" era. I thought the cadence of his writing was engrossing. Descriptions were sharply written. The carpool dialogue was darkly hilarious.

Like a modern "The Grapes of Wrath", this book will make you rethink the calculus of economic theory that business schools would have us all believe is the only way to guide our thinking.
"AICGet" is an easy read. Its message is powerful.

A quick, tight read of what it's like, on a very personal level, to want to get ahead at the center of the high-pressure business world. Every step of the way I found myself drawn into the protaganist Barry's world, understanding why he made the decisions he did; I rooted for him even when the moral shortcomings of his decisions were clear. The evocation of the world of high finance was vivid, alluring and frightening at the same time. I felt this was how this world really worked. In the end a book that is both instructive and highly entertaining.

I'm actually not a trader but I like good novels and this was one of the best of the year. It's not only an expose of the Wall Street world---these people who like you to think they're busy running the world yet can barely run a normal life. Lasser has written a great morality tale for the end of the last century and the begining of this new one. Smart, funny and dead on, it makes it hard to wait for the next book of this rising star.

This book connected for me on many levels. First, it was a good read. I found myself picking it up for a few quick pages many times during the day--always a good gut check. Beyond that, it dealt with the core issues that I think so many of us wrestle with for most of our adult lives, ie, balancing our values with our needs, and resisting (or not) temptation. I could relate to the protagonist and found myself rooting for him even though I knew he was heading into the swamp at no one's fault but his own. The insights into Wall Street were a bonus, but in truth just a setting to play out the human elements. I felt that the writing was from the heart without pretension or cynicism like so many of the better known contemporary American novelists. I can't wait to read his other efforts.

The cast of characters seem so real and plot so plausible, I loved the book. I work in that industry, and there are all the characters there. It is a well descriptive book that I would reccomend for anyone.

As a member of this wacky bond trading world, I really liked the book. One of the issues those not in the industry might grapple with is the reality of the characters. Surely there couldn't exist such crazy people, right? Wrong. Its spot on, which might be what offended those who didn't like the book.

I found it well written, a great story line, and very entertaining. While some of the jargon is unfamiliar to the layman, Lasser does a great job of demythifying it.
I tried to get through Bonfire of the Vanities and found it too cumbersome and fragmented. This book was a much easier read. And more true to life than you know.

Scott Lasser's All I Could Get is a fast paced, unputdownable read. It's pure entertainment, with characters that are as interesting as they are real. We've all met these people and we know this story. Yet Mr. Lasser manages to lay it all out with humor, gut, and a little tug at the heart now and then. Thanks Scott, I look forward to the next one!!!

I read Battle Creek and I think Scott Lasser's second novel shows that he is a rising star among new authors. Lasser has identified what is, for many of us, the central conflict in our life: namely, the balance between providing for our family and seeking an enjoyable and meaningful career. Although it is an issue which receives considerable press these days, Lasser's characters offer a refreshing and lively new vehicle to present this conflict. Lasser's main man, Barry Schwartz, contemplates the question what are we willing to do--what are we willing to risk, to go beyond paying the bills to lift our families up into that top 1% of society that no longer has any concern about money? Although Barry stumbles to a conclusion, after putting the book down I was unsure of what the proper balance should be. That's what I liked the best. It was an enjoyable read and it left me feeling a bit uneasy. I look forward to Lasser's next work!

ALL I COULD GET is not only a highly readable novel, but at the same time a relevant commentary on the importance of social status and material wealth.
In a cut-throat chase for the American Dream, Wall Street bond trader Barry Schwartz sacrifices friendships, a strong marriage and his two children in the name of financial security.
Despite the the two previous poor reviews here of this book, I thoroughly enjoyed ALL I COULD GET. A fast-paced narrative and smart, real dialogue make this book an easy read. In my opinion, good fiction should be both entertaining and thought-provoking, and Lasser succeeds on both counts.

Used to be, a book published by Knopf could be counted on as an assurance of quality, especially in fiction by new and lesser-known writers. That seems to be much less true today, if this tome is any indication. There's nothing wrong with a little escapist fiction to fatten the bottom line, but Mr. Lasser's effort sadly does not make it in either category.
The author is identified as someone very similar to his protagonist, Barry Schwartz: business school grad, former government bond trader in NYC, and current resident of Old Snowmass, CO. and hence one assumes this is somewhat autobiographical. The trouble is that Schwartz is not a particularly interesting or even likeable fellow and his "fall" into the mercenary values of the big city lacks any dramatic impact whatsoever. His beginnings in "poverty" include a mysterious and unnamed job near Aspen which somehow allows him to ski 100 to 150 days a year, this in one of the nation's priciest zip codes (how much are season passes in Aspen these days anyways?) He then decides to make some money, gets an MBA, and is off to the government bond trading floor at a NYC firm. Schwartz's mindset is extremely conventional and banal and he rarely has anything interesting to say. He's also a weight snob and whenever a new male character makes an appearance he is weighed to the pound and (usually) found to be overweight. As the money-grubbing becomes more intense, the reader has a hard time emphasizing with this character because of the hubris inherent in his character.
Plenty of excellent novels are built around unsympathetic central characters and all of this could be excusable if the quality of the prose met the occasion. Unfortunately,it's written in sort of Tom Clancy-meets-Danielle Steele style, with clunky and not-very-enlightening exposition alternating with sentimental and syrupy-sweet emotion, particularly in his praise of himself as a father, his desirability to women, etc. The affair Schwartz has is entirely predictable from the first time we meet the (hopelessly attractive) woman. No where are there any comments on how useless this occupation of trading bonds really is, except one reference to it as a zero-sum game, and Schwartz even repeats the claim that it is justified in that it greases the wheels of world capitalism, seemingly without any irony at all. One chapter, promisingly entitled "Making Economic Injustice Work for You" turns out not to be any comment on the inequities of a system that handsomely rewards such activity. All in all, this is a disappointment on any level.