Adam B. Resnick

Wow, this book feels like playing Russian Roulette or doing a chicky run or something. It's thrilling as hell, and you KNOW that it is going to end in tragedy, but there is not one thing you can do to stop it.

So here's the jist: this is a memoir, or as the author calls it, a "Cautionary Tale". It's the life of Adam Resnick, whose gambling addiction grew and grew to the point where he lost $8.5 million in a marathon session and ended up taking down a savings & loan with a check kiting scheme. I picked up this book because I have read a lot of the "MIT Whiz Kids Crush Vegas" type books, and I wanted to see the other side of a life I know I would never have the guts to live. What a stark contrast.

In classic hindsight is 20/20, you can see the makings of compulsive gambler in Adam at age 6. He's living a charmed life where he has never really had to feel any consequences of his actions. You are reading this and you literally want to shake him and scream to him to stop.

But that's part of the problem I have with this book - I think it's a work of fiction. I've seen a couple of the articles on his sentencing since the bank he crushed was local. Adam is a con man, no matter how much he claims he isn't in the book. He's good at self promotion, and this book is just another tool he is using to do just that. He's very big on not wanting to seem like a victim, but if you read between the lines, he still hasn't taken full responsibility for what he became. Throughout the book, his father should have done more to stop him, the therapist he went to just told him what was wrong, not how to fix it, his gambling friends expressed remorse for not stopping him earlier, etc. So while Adam steps up to take his lumps, there are a lot of throwaway comments indicating that someone else was to blame.

And while it wasn't really part of the plot of the book, Adam put this in here so it's fair game for me to disect. BULLSHIT on him not cheating on his wife. I don't buy it for a second. He's living the high rolling Vegas lifestyle, he partook. Thou doth protest too much, Adam. For reasons I cannot comprehend, his wife has remained in his corner for a very long time, and she's pretty much all he had left at the end of the story. It's in Adam's best interest to put forward the idea he never slept around, but I'm not buying.

In summary, this book was one hell of a thrill ride. Total page turner that entertained me on a flight across the country, but had enough substance to keep me thinking for days. I'd rate the book a 9.5 out of 10, but rate the author a 2 as a person, because he's so full of shit. Somehow, I doubt that he's finding the environment in prison as the ideal place to continue his gambling detox.… (plus d'informations)