Kevin Roose, writer for New York magazine, has written a book chronicling the journey of a few fresh recruits into the banking industry. It records their struggles, thoughts and emotions about the industry, themselves and the people around them. Along the three-year journey in the book, Roose has also worked in other topics about the industry. The youths themselves come from varied backgrounds.
The book is written in a way that is simple read. I would have thought it would be confusing as the author has chosen to alternate between characters and topics, but it has made this book more interesting. He has also managed to work in events such as the Wall Street protests to give the book a sense of the passage of time. The book paints a negative impression of the industry, although the author has not bashed it. Instead, I think he has done a good job of being fair to the people inside the industry and made them out to be normal everyday folk just trying to get by. Through the emotional struggles of the youths, Roose has also invoked thoughtful questions about the nature of the industry itself and its influence. For anyone who wants to have a realistic impression of working in investment banking as a fresh graduate, the book provides a fair description of what to expect. The book has also managed to capture the zeitgeist of the youth and the economy; there is the sense that the youths today are looking for different challenges compared to previous generations. I feel that this book is a balanced read and yet not too jargon or content-heavy.
Found in NLB: Yes
Recommended: Yes
