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Gimme Shelter (2009)

by Mary Elizabeth Williams(Favorite Author)

3.59 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

1416557083 (ISBN13: 9781416557081)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Simon & Schuster

review 1: DISCLAIMER: This review is written by a commercial Realtor.Now reporting this, I feel Gimme Shelter is a pretty good book. Memoires are not my typical read, but I do like the many anecdotes concerning her friends looking for a house, or city to live. She also writes during one of the two worst times in recent real estate history. – The first being the late 1980’s and early ‘90s when The Resolution Trust was created. What I feel would make this book stronger is if Ms. Williams had created some discussion questions at the end. So I’d like to throw in a few. 1) Do you relate to any of the people who were looking for a house?2) Knowing the ups and downs that Elizabeth and Jeff went through, would you do it the same or differently?3) Can you relate to all of the hoops t... morehat Elizabeth and Jeff had to jump through to get a house? If not, how would you prevent them?4) What people were actively working for Elizabeth and Jeff? Do you feel they asked for good representation? If not, what would you do?5) Do you feel that a home is also a commodity and that its value can go up or down?6) Elizabeth concludes in her epilogue, “We are all accountable for our wisdom or lack thereof in our choices. At the height of our housing bubble, greed and stupidity were abundant on an individual and institutional level.” Do you feel we have enough laws to protect us from us? Do you know what the laws are? Should these laws only affect home purchases or should they be for items where other credit is concerned?
review 2: This was an okay book about the trials of home buying in New York in a runaway economy. It details the highs and lows and the gritty real-life account of 4--500k dumps being offed on people a year or so ago. I could have done without some of the language - seems any contemporary account has to include expletives to gain some kind of street cred or to have an authentic 'voice.' Unfortunately, that is also true with conversations so maybe this is just the author's real voice after all. It seems there are a number of these type books out at the moment. It was an easy read and I appreciated the author writing it and letting us see a glimpse of life from the 'inside.' It was also kind of 'journalistic' (in a bad way) with all kinds of value judgements and commentary on low-doc loans, LTV, the real estate bubble, difficult realtors, snooty moms, etc. Probably not for anyone who isn't curious about either New York or the home buying experience. less

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