Opening Belle Book Review
The Kirkus book review about Opening Belle says that this book is funny and a laugh a minute. I enjoyed this book but I didn't laugh out loud. It's just too soon to laugh about greed and financial collapse.
Part of a trend
However, Opening Belle, is a good read. Opening Belle seems to be part of the trend of books being written about the collapse of Wall Street. If Sherry wanted to illustrate the bad behavior of the Wall Street brokers, she kind of failed. Nothing really happened to main character Belle Cassidy. There are a few instances of hi jinx that happens to other minor characters but nothing as outrageous as what happened between brokers.
Bond Girl starts from the beginning
Another book about Wall Street, Bond Girl, by Erin Duffy does a better job of describing the frat boy antics of Wall Street banks. Maybe it was because the main character is a newbie and has to be put through the ringer to prove herself. And, in the book, outrageous things do happen.
Opening Bell the sequel
Yet these are two good books to read together because Opening Bell is about a managing director at the top of the food chain and Bond Girl is a new stock broker and at the bottom of the food chain. Both are survivors of a jungle that no sane person would tolerate for very long. In fact, at the end of both books, the characters leave Wall Street.
A Wall Street journey
Bond Girl is the journey of a girl just out of business school and her experiences breaking into the frat-boy world of stock brokers. Opening Bell has already conquered the world of stock brokers and is very successful sitting at the top of her game as a managing director. So, Opening Bell is almost like a sequel to Bond Girl.
Success in work and home
Author Maureen Sherry once more uses the theme of a woman trying desperately to be a success at work and at home, with a twist. Her character Isabelle "Belle" Cassidy makes $500,000 a year plus bonus as high as 3 million so she can buy every convenience that makes her life run smother without breaking a sweat.
The mortgage crisis explained
But this story is more than Belle's struggles, Sherry wraps her story around the not so in the past mortgage crisis. In fact, Belle becomes part of what caused the crisis when she begins to trade the mortgages that collapsed banks. So, in this story we see the origins, the actions and the consequences through Belle's eyes.
I'll be truthful
I will be truthful with you and say that I still don't understand mortgage prices and the collapse of financial institutions but that's just me. I'm not always the sharpest tool in the shed. What I did understand was how the collapse of banks changed a lot of people. The character Belle, went through a complete transformation by the end of Opening Belle.
Here is a link to the Kirkus Review about Opening Belle
A link to the Kirkus Review of Bond Girl