Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

There is just no end to books about money, finance, how rich famous people got rich and famous, and how you can become rich or at least wiser with money yourself. This is a saturated market for financial self help styled books. What makes this one different? In some ways, absolutely nothing and other ways it is unique. Cons: The author does give cliche advice about being frugal and saving your money and not spending like a child on the latest and fanciest new toys. The author also gives no real insight into how any of the people he mentions in the book became rich. If you are looking for that kind of book, then do not buy this one. I also despised he only mentioned men in the book who were rich and well known and not a single woman. This is horrible for two reasons: A. Society has produced more wealthy women than ever before in the past; (2) Some of the men who got rich were able to use their gender privilege as leverage to get ahead in the corporate world. At least the author addressed some men of color and was not exclusive to white men bc in these days, there are more people of color with wealth than there was in the past. The author also does not do case studies of why some people hold on to their assets in their lifetime. He fails to even mention at all families who pass on their assets for generations as well. He does not mention privilege or inherited wealth at all. The author has cliche commentary about people who had funds once and lost it all bc they spent childishly and did not prepare for an economic downturn. The author also gives lackluster historical information about how economies change over time. I am a huge history buff and nothing he said was new to me or even particularly insightful. Pros: I have long known that most people who drive luxury cars are not rich. Most of these people are wretched financial situations or they bought the car when the markets were good and had no foresight times would get rough one day soon and they would regret buying that car. However, the other does package and explain a trite concept in an interesting way. Also, there may be less sophisticated readers buying this book who never considered it before that the person they always envied with the expensive car was actually on the brink of bankruptcy. One of my favorite parts was the part about how when you see someone roll up in a fancy car, they had a mediocre success and spent half their paycheck on that car. I give this book 4 stars and not less despite the annoyances in my cons section bc it is a good reminder that you can not be a fool with your gold. Esp. these days where there is no end to fools try to one up each other with fancy cars and private schools they can not actually afford. The word for this on the street is "flossing". The book started off riveting at first and served as a cautionary tale but wow did it disappoint towards the end and wow was the sexism ever so apparent.