Editor’s Note: In response to recent criticisms that Zombie has devolved into nothing more than a bunch of stupid lists and racist jokes, I have decided to add a new page: Literary Corner!
And to get us started, Zombie writer Penn Collins grudgingly agreed to review the last book he read, Ben Mezrich’s Bringing Down the House.
Enjoy!
Penn Reviews Ben Mezrich’s
Bringing Down the House
Because Adam Won’t Shut Up About
Being More “Literary”
by Penn Collins
Five years ago, before it was made into a Kevin Spacey move, I didn’t have many friends and read the book Bringing Down the House because Borders featured it prominently in the Grove.
Sitting around smoking bud and laying out by the pool, this book didn’t really do much for me. I missed hanging out with people and was hoping the book would be a really good escape from the hegemony of modern life, but it just wasn’t. This much is true.
Still I kept reading it and then I made a list of things that happened in the book. First, the main character was Asian, which doesn’t normally happen. But the book is based on real-life, so the author couldn’t change it without Oprah yelling at him. In the movie they made him a white kid that could have a show on the CW about sexy rich vampires.
Anyway, a bunch of kids went to MIT, which for those of you who don’t know is Harvard’s math school. They were tired of being dorks so they used their math knowledge to be really good at blackjack, which for those of you who don’t know is also called 21, the bespoken name of the movie after which it is referred to.
I don’t remember too much, but I remember that they got good at counting cards, which for those of you who don’t know is a good way to cheat at blackjack without going to jail but still allowing you to get your ass kicked by casino security which we find out is a thing that happens later on in the story. Not wanting to get their ass kicked, the system they develop is based on codes and sneakiness that result from being smart. They get their ass kicked in Jamaica or some island, by the way, after they get banned from regular American casinos for being super sneaky.
Anyway, that thing I just mentioned happens at the end of the book, and before it they end up getting together and the leader, the Asian guy, dates a Raiders cheerleader who is probably retardedly hot and also probably retardedly dumb. When you’re reading it, you’re like oh, this guy is pretty cool. Then the guy says something like “I’m just an Asian kid”. And you’re like “No way. I thought he was white”. The same thing happened my Junior year in high school when I read Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and just figured all the characters were black, but they were really just southern.
Before all the action, Kevin Spacey’s character teaches them how to cheat and he seems pretty cool about it. But he also got a lot of money for just teaching when all the other people were the ones risking their dicks, so that was a point of contention and the beginning of the end for the group. That happened near the middle of the book.
They end up getting a shit ton of money from the casinos and then it gets taken away. This happens like 20 times during the story and is a theme. It’s symbolic of the fleeting nature of cheating at blackjack and that money is really material. Which for those of you who don’t know is another way to read into this book for extra enjoyment and enrichment.
Because cheating at blackjack is fleeting, the Asian guy and his friends stop cheating and become normal eventually. Which is good, cause the money was fleeting, as I mentioned before. I don’t know what happened to all the people in the book, but generally, they should be happier cause they aren’t living on the fringes of society, cloaked in shadows.
I highly recommend this book.
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