Ivy League Books

After reading the first Ivy League mystery,(A Darker Shade of Crimson), I was disappointed, but I decided I would give the second book Blue Blood a shot, I am wondering to myself why did you put yourself through this torture of another boring book. I very quickly became bored with the book, and for what was going on with Nikki and Dante' in the first book the way it ended who would have thought thet that their relationship could get even more boring, for these two people there was no romance to speak of a kiss was almost mention, but that's it. So to bring Dante back into Nikki's life after an eight year absence, Pamela Griffin-Thomas could have left him out all together as much romance that was not between them, Nikki should have just stay without someone.

I saw this on my list of recommendations and started w/the first one - A Darker Shade of Crimson. Honestly - I'm glad I did. THAT ONE WAS GOOD...a real page turner...a quick read. This one was a little lower on the scale and currently I'm reading "Orange Crushed"...set in (you guessed it) Princeton U. While I appreciate the Black heroine .... I'm not sure if this is going to be a long term series at all I.L. colleges. I mean - realistically ... how many excuses can PTG use to get Nikki to those campuses?

I read some of the previous reviews and while I can agree that there are some issues--Nikki's point at Yale is somewhat confused and the thing with Dante seems ambiguous and at points frustratingly random, but it was still a good read. Entertaining, funny, and I thought the descriptions about race were spot on.

In her first book a Darker Shade of Crimson there was some sense in the story because Nikki Chase was operating in her home environment. This book deals with a murder at Yale of a righr wing law professor. It is hard to understand why Nikki even was around. It also missed the interesting characters from the earlier effort. Nikki's boyfriend Dante is really hard to understand. He appears for no reason

All in all a book that is very hard to believe and is disappointing.

Nancy Drew meets Quasimodo! Proceed at your own risk if you are over 12 years old or have an IQ over 80. Unless you are stuck at the Mexico City airport like I was and can't find anything else on the shelf. An author with her credentials should know better.

I loved this book. By telling her story so intricately, Nabrit, provides the foundation for all of us who are choosing to educate our children at home. I appreciate her transparency and vulnerability in the book. She made some mistakes (along with her husband) and we can all learn from them. She also shares some brilliant ideas. This book does have a Christian theme in part because they are a Christian family. Another reviewer said it was more about race, than homeschooling. If you are homeschooling an African American child/teenager, rest assured this book IS about race and YOU WILL BE GLAD FOR IT. When you buy this book, you will read it for information and keep it for inspiration.

Paula Penn-Nabrit chose homeschooling for her three black boys when they were pushed out of an elite midwestern private school. She and her husband, C. Madison, managed to put together an effective homeschooling program that supported their Christian, upper-middle class black values and helped her children reach elite education. For educators seeking radical solutions to addressing the challenges facing black students, this book offers a powerful testimony of one family's strategies in finding an alternative path.

For those readers looking for nuts and bolts information, I'd advise you to look elsewhere. Much of this book is spent clarifying the values and motivations for their choices. Little space is devoted to explaining curriculum choices. I can see how other reviewers were frustrated by the relative lack of specific details. I wish that the title didn't include "how" and focused on "why" or had some kind of cue to alert prospective buyers to how radical this book is.

Sadly, one audience who would really benefit from this book will probably never find it. This family is related to one of the lawyers who argued the Brown vs. Board of Education case. They have ties to elite networks in black America and both parents are Ivy League educated as well, which may have eased the process in gaining acceptance to Princeton and Amherst for the boys. Nabrit's painstaking defense of her decisions and her reflections on the attitudes she faced can be very helpful for those seeking to understand black elites and the tensions between trying to gain access to the upper echelons of American society such as private schools and Ivy League schools while trying to maintain an identity that is very distinctively black.

Some readers may be turned off by the frequent quoting of scripture to defend the values. Others may find this story to be too particular a case to apply to their own homeschooling situations. Personally, I was very intrigued by the chance to peer into the home of a black family that defied many traditional categories and found a very creative response to the challenges of education.

I'm not about to homeschool my future family after reading this book. But I do plan to apply some of Nabrit's holistic values for educating black males to my own work. Already, I see myself wanting to use some of the values in this book for supplemental educational projects related to black male middle schoolers.

Very helpful for a narrow audience...
4.5 stars for me
2.5 stars for being somewhat mislabeled
3.5 stars overall.

The Nabrits did an exceptional job of homeschooling their 3 sons, but I never finished the book. The rhetoric of racism and the Nabrit's "Ivy league status" was like a recurring theme on every page that took away from the purpose of the book. Was this a biography or a homeschooling book??? I came away with 2 things....all white people are bad, and she is (self-described) smart. I felt like it was her outlet to tell her story of mistreatment, and not a practical homeschooling book. I have moved on to practical, helpful, not negative, homeschooling resources.

I am grateful to Paula Penn-Nabrit for having written this illuminating book. It is beyond my criticism. Perhaps the greatest treasure it offers is its revelation of how racism is still being played out by well-meaning white people. (You would have to read it to "get" it, especially if you are a standard white person like I am.) I also love that the Nabrits devised their own curriculum: so creative and applaudable! In fact, Paula is so personable you will appreciate her as a woman, despite the flaws that she confesses. You will also know she is no less a genius for not graduating all 3 sons from Ivy League Schools. I think those sons must be fantastic people and the Nabrits have done us all a favor by sending out into the world children of such extraordinary character. I would hope everyone reads this book, whether they choose to homeschool or not- it presents such a superlative example of what you can do for your children. Thank you, Paula.

First, let me say I totally commend the Nabrits for their inspiring accomplishment with their sons and also for their desire to share their experience with the African American community and the homeschool community. But the book wasn't the 'homeschooling resource' that I expected it to be. Ms. Penn-Nabrit's experience of racism were shocking and disappointing to this white woman who 'thought' America had moved further beyond racism than, apparently, we have. I found the book enlightening on that score, but after a while (& could this be my own defense-mechanism?) I started to feel like some of the racism she finds might be a part of self-fulfilling prophecy. If you look hard enough, you will always find it. I am not doubting her first-hand experiences, but perhaps don't fully agree with some of her choices as to what to focus on.
Penn-Nabrit does offer useful suggestions such as using graduate students as tutors, and finding other strong mentors for your children. I also like how she used 'reverse-engineering' basically, to use college admission requirements to help design a course of study. I just wanted to hear more of THAT sort of info. I wasn't crazy about the organization of the book, and felt I had to sort through lots of personal data: which son had which birth weight or liked which sports, as well as the racism experiences in order to get to the bits that were fresh and applicable.
I totally support homeschooling, and would love to see more of it. I agree that African American homes have been under-reached on this topic. This book may well motivate someone TO homeschool, but you'll then want to move to other resources as to the HOW TO homeschool.

This was a quick read that gave an inside look into the industry in Asia. I found the book well-written and informative, as well as entertaining. I highly recommend.

Just finished this book and found it very entertaining. It is definitely not a book on how to trade. It is a very interesting story that I suspect is somewhat dramatized. Reads like a novel.

I wouldn't worry about suspected minor innaccuracies. Maybe most people can't rent a car in Bermuda, but if you have $50 million I'll bet there is a way around it. As far as Ivy league schools not giving athletic scholarships that is not exactly true. It is a matter of semantics. Most people familiar with education in the Northeast understand that prep schools and Ivy league universities don't give "athletic" scholarships, but they do give "financial aid" that just happens to fall substantially upon good athletes even if their families are well off.

This book is like Ben's others, a good read that keeps you wanting more. It is clear that the author enjoys digging deep into what these intelligent, elite Ivy Leaguers do with their connections and smarts. The book follows a Princeton grad on his deep dive into the Asian world and shows how the natives view the over-bearing visitors and how the visitors could care less about how they are perceived.

Expensive motorcycles, ubiquitous sex, high dollar deals and a daily dose of living on the brink of the next big deal, keep you interested and amazed at what these young hot shots are exposed to and how they handle it.

Get's a little lost at times but a very fast read. Would make an interesting movie.

i heard from industry people that actually knew the person mentioned here, so the person does indeed exist, but the story isnt true. Lots of BS and conspirary that the author just puts in to entertain the reader...

This was our third book. . .wore the others out from use as so few people had ever paid much attention to this "Secret Society".
The Author made reading very enjoyable. Don't see how they can equate Skull and Bones Society with the Christian Principles of Yale though.

Guess it is like everything else that came over from Europe. . .

I definitely enjoyed Alexandra Robbins' other books, however "Secrets of the Tomb" is not a fun read. Robbins is long winded and lacks the narrative that is so entertaining in "Pledged" and "The Overachievers." The book takes a historical perspective that is too detailed and not very direct, creating a lot of build-up for describing a boring society and ritual. Since Robbins was herself a member of a secret society the book is written with an undercurrent of reverance that seems to bar the author from revealing too much.

I thought the book was a little slow in the beginning, as it deeply covers the rise of the secret societies within Yale's deep past. However, the author transitioned very smoothly from subject to subject and captured my interest with every page. The author dives deep into the basis of the Skull and Bones society, including the historical and tremendously ironic history of the Bush family. Very interesting read, with deeply historical and accurate documentation of the society's beginnings, an inside look into the initaition rituals, debunking of myths, and exasperating covering of historical (and ultimately important) American families.

The book has an intriguing cover and title. The introduction was captivating. Sadly, it's all downhill from there -- it reads like the minutes of a long and unproductive meeting.

Apparently, the author has succeeded in recruiting her friends to leave contrived reviews. Of the 28 which rated this book at 5-stars, 15 were anonymous and 9 had this book as their only reviewed work. That leaves 4 people who unquestionably enjoyed it -- the editor, her parents, and boyfriend. The others are suspect.

Secrets of the Tomb is a must read book for all those who research secret societies or fraternal organizations here in America. Robbins takes a historical yet informative look at the founding of this organization. She examines the fabric of what makes this organization a strong respected organization on the campus and a bond that carries well beyond undergraduate years. An organization that set out to be self supporting and has remained so to date. Skull and Bones has changed a little with the time admitting women into the society. It still is at the center of American issues such as (education, politics, and publicity).

So happy I stumbled onto this series...I really enjoyed the story, the discussion about race politics in academe, the romantic strife, and the murder mystery! Author is funny, smart, and the plot had enough twists and turns.

I read the third installment first, then the first and now I'm halfway through the second and so far, this is the better of the three. I love the fact that while the three novels in the series were written and published over a 5 year period, their plots unfold over the course of one fall semester. This plot was great with lots of twists. I even learned a couple of new words as there was at least one new word per chapter. All characters had depth and were well rounded. The only character that was somewhat flat was Dante. I could see why Nikki developed solid friendships with Maggie, Jess and Rafe. I could even see why she disliked but respected her department chair, Ian. But for the life of me I could not understand the love-hate relationship between her and Dante. Every single encounter with him, save the last, brought out the absolute worst in her, with no discernable reason why. I would have given the novel 4 stars were it not for this flaw.

This is a thoughtful, well-written, intelligent murder mystery. That in and of it itself would be good, but then to add a protagonist to whom I could relate so well personally, gives it an extra star!!!

I checked this book (along w/PTG's other 2) out at my local library. This one wet my appetite for the other 2, but sadly to say...I'm not sure of Yale and Princeton are up the Harvard. Read all of them for yourself and let me know. It is nice to have a Black, female character in this role in higher ed!

When I first happened upon this book by a recommendatiion, becaude I am a lover of mystery/interracial romance novels, so when I read this book I thought I would really enjoy the storyline as well as the romance between Nikki and Dante
Big disapointed on both counts. Hard to follow and as far as a romance for the romance of any kind that was mentioned it could have been left out of the book.

I ordered and returned this. My son is a high school senior and looking to get into MIT or another selective school. There is nothing in this book to help him do that. So if your child is past elementary school, there is nothing in this book that is unique. If your child is very young, and you are affluent parents, then the book might be of help to you.

"Your book is an insightful and relevant expose of what parents and kids should look for when weighing the possibilities of attending an Ivy League school. I have no doubt that this book will be a helpful aid for those who might not have believed such an educational opportunity existed for their child. It can also serve as an impetus in motivating parents to begin the process early in their child's educational career. You have done an apt job in tearing away the veil which has obscured admittance to many of our nation's best schools. I can only hope your book will have a wide readership among mainstream America."

A page turning book about a 25 year old guy from Harvard Business School who goes to work on the New York mercantile exchange trading oil. The book details his young and fast paced life, including the money, women, and exotic travel he encounters along the way. It takes you along in his journeys back and forth to Dubai (as part of an attempt to open an energy exchange there) and the opulence he encounters while there. I was fascinated by the authors accounts of the city, and it enabled me to paint a more complete picture of what has become a booming international destination.

If you like this book, you might also enjoy The Wolf of Wall Street, which is in the same genre but arguably somewhat better written.

Even as a novel, it is not that well written. Mr. Mezrich is brilliant in selecting interesting topics to write about, but not brilliant enough to deliver.
After reading this book, you will gain no insight in the trading and oil businesses. Spend your time on some other more worthwhile books.

Ben Mezrich is the saddest excuse for a non-fiction writer/journalist there is out there. I only bought this book on a flight back the Middle East where I am currently stationed. I've been to Dubai, and I can tell you right now that Ben Mezrich is only regurgitating what he's read or dreamed about. Yes, Dubai is up and coming, but at the same time its truly is overrated. As far as his knowledge of the MERC, I could have learned that reading the Journal. Ben needs to go get laid or something, the way he talks about women in his books "Bringing Down the House" and this book, "Rigged" just shows you that he lives in a fantasy world. I guess what really blows me away is how the book never gets a hold of your attention. What was the fu**ing point of this book? Bottom line here is this; if you have time and money to waste, you like to read poorly written works, and you live in a fantasy world then buy it. If not, leave it on the shelf and don't give Mezrich any more reason to think that he should write another book.

I picked up this book hoping it might be something on the order of "Liars Poker" or "Barbarians at the Gates" or "The Pay Pal Wars," books that imparted huge amounts of information about the businesses that they covered. Boy, was I ever disappointed.

Mezrich's characters are suitable for comic books, the business concepts he imparts are perhaps the level that would be explained to fourth-graders on a field trip, and the plot is close to non-existent. I'd say his writing is boring but it seldom rises to that level.

I trade futures and FOREX, so I know a bit about markets and finance. Most of the narrative-type business books I have read give me at least one or two important pieces of information about the business itself. What Mezrich imparts about the Merc can be put into a one-page pamphlet.

I was most of the way through this piece of dreck when I realized what the point of this book was-- Mezrich is hoping to land a movie script. He tried to write it simple and shallow enough for Hollywood mogels to understand, and he tried to incorporate glitz and money and sex.

Save your money, save your time-- skip this book. Mr. C.S.

Mezrich books have been fun in the past, blackjack etc. and I really enjoyed Ugly Americans. However, this book is one dimensional with the minus of exaggerated dramatic situations. I cannot complain too much as I read it in a day, definitely fast paced, but I kept waiting for something cooler or more interesting to happen, which never did. To save you the time; Ivy league Kid gets job at the MERC in NY, UAE is figuring out how to position themselves for the future as a tiny middle eastern country and want to set up oil exchange in Dubai, NY Kid goes to Dubai and helps set up mid east oil mercantile exchange. Woulda been a good magazine article. Anyways I cannot recommend this book. "Bringing Down the House" and "Ugly Americans" were definitely much more interesting.

Heidi, the author, is a very determined lady. Halfway through her education at Brown University, she was injured through the fault of the university. Thanks to Brown University's denial of the claim and other very underhanded treatment, the author became a stripper to pay for her tuition.

I found her unemotional treatment of the wrongs done to her to be fascinating and well written. Her saga emphasizes what determination and force of will can accomplish, despite opposition.

If I were advising Brown University, I'd suggest that they offer her big dollars to remove the book from circulation and then try to buy up all the existing copies. The author very coolly and unemotionally shows Brown University to be a mean spirited, uncaring place that treats its paying customers badly. They made a bad mistake in treating her so badly. However, the book is her revenge. Good job, Heidi!

I wonder how many of the negative reviews of this book were placed by people working for Brown University. I say that because the book is well written and thoughtful. I cannot fathom how anyone could give it a negative review unless they were being paid to do so to protect their employer's very exposed posterior.

My review is on the content of the book, not my judgment of the author, or what work she performed for a living.

My first problem with the book is the writing. This is a college graduate, from Brown? Most high school students can write better sentences. The book is filled with run-on sentences, sentence fragments, etc. Was there not an editor for the book? The poor writing affected the readibility of the book. This was a major problem in the book, and the reason I could only give a two-star rating.

The subject matter of the book was intriguing. Heidi provided an insight into a world few of us will either know or experience. However, the book does suffer from a lack of credibility. At several points in the book I found myself not fully believing the story being told. I don't think the author lied about her experiences, but I also do not believe she told the "whole" truth. I never fully believed her version of the soap dish incident. If she told the truth, she must have had the worst lawyer in the country to lose that case.

The author stated many times that her stripping was just to earn money to pay for college and it would not change her, but it did. Not only did she become addicted to the glamour and money (how many times did she count her money?), but she continued to strip long after her college was paid for and she had graduated.

My next problem with the book was the disjointed thoughts. In mid-paragraph, she would switch from one thought to another for no apparent reason. One would have no relation to the other. There was no coherant theme or thought pattern to any chapter. It was like a child rambling and babbling one random thought after another.

My final complaint about the book is that it seemed to be the author's therapy for her feelings of guilt about being a stripper. Throughout the book she rationalized what she was doing. She was afraid of what her family, especially her mom, would think of her for being a stripper, but then she would say that she was forced to do it to pay for her college.

The book is worth a read, as it is interesting, but keep a shaker of salt nearby.

I find the incredibly negative reviews of Ivy League Stripper interesting. I almost wonder if I read a different book than some of these people. Perhaps they were written by some of her rivals. Who knows?

Heidi does not "advocate" stripping anywhere in the book that I can tell, nor did she when I saw her on Real Personal with Bob Berkowitz. In fact, she made a point of saying she did not recommend it as a way of earning money. On TV and in the book she made it quite clear that it is not an easy or safe way to make money, however addictive that money might be. My sense of the book was that she came across as just about the only undamaged person in the business. She did discuss topics like drug use, prostitution, money addiction, and self-esteem, but since the book was about her personal journey, she didn't dwell on the problems of others. Perhaps it didn't appeal to people who wanted a more dramatic, negative, and victimized approach. She never said anything to give even the slightest impression that she was attempting a tour de force of sex work in the US. (I recommend Susie Bright or Carol Queen for that sort of thing.) This was a book about her personal journey, not yours. If your experience was different, then write your own book so we can read it, too.

I'll admit that my experience with "exotic dancers" is somewhat limited. I have only been to the clubs a half dozen or so times, and I don't know any dancers personally. I do hear by second and third hand stories that the scene does have a high rate of drug (including alcohol - it is a drug) use, prostitution, and other unsavory activities. There would probably be far less of such things if sex work were not forced into marginal areas of towns and the people involved treated like garbage by so-called "good citizens." The clubs I visited had full nudity.

The question of whether showing off one's body for money is degrading is largely a matter of semantics and personality. People who have an exhibitionistic bent are *not* degraded by such exposure, but exhilarated and empowered by it. Realize that there are different types of people in the world! Is it any less degrading for a coal miner to trade the health of his lungs for money, or a stock broker his/her ethics? Women in this society face degrading behavior all the time in every location and setting you care to name. (For that matter so do men.) If one looks beneath the thin veneer of common society here in the US, there is far more unsavory behavior going on than most will admit, and it happens in churches, boardrooms, and on Wall Street. This is a sick, sex-negative, anti-nature, and basically maladjusted society, and we all pay a price for that.

The discussion of nudity and appreciation of the human body and sexuality is a far too long and complex one to settle here. Read some history - When God Was A Woman, Ishtar Rising, or other material on how and why our current religious-based views of sex were created. Shame over nudity and sexual behavior is not universal, natural, "moral," or healthy by a long shot. Read Betty Dodson, Carol Queen, Susie Bright, Annie Sprinkle, Laura Kipnis, or some other of the intelligent, sex-positive writers.

My experience in strip clubs was transformative. I felt liberated and freed from centuries of lies. I experienced more spiritual release in those few short hours than in decades of Christian beliefs. I literally felt transported back to a time when women were proud of being sexual beings who owned, celebrated, and were masters of, their own sexual energy. I felt a deep sense of gratitude, wonder, awe, respect, devotion, and something so deeply spiritual that it sent me researching the goddess religions for understanding. Few women comprehend the tremendous power their body holds for men. (And there are forces in this society who don't want you to learn that, either.)

The complaints that she didn't seek "honest" work are humorous - maybe something honest like politics or working at Enron or pushing denatured foodlike toxins at a fast-food restaurant? I consider the no-strings, cash-for-a-look-at-my-body transaction in the strip clubs to be one of the most honest transactions in this society!

Of course, I realize that Heidi's real error was in writing what she really experienced and how she really felt, not what was expected or "politically correct." I find it interesting when women who respond to being sexually assualted/harassed by ramping up their self-esteem, owning and wielding their sexual power instead of becoming whimpering little victims who need someone to protect them, are attacked for it. Interesting how little is said in the reviews of the behavior of the people at Brown.

But then again, maybe some of the reviews are from folks at Brown............

I feel it is really a three star, but I gave it four in an attempt to create some balance. Her writing is okay, but not as insightful or powerful as Susie Bright, Carol Queen, Betty Dodson, or Laura Kipnis. Read them if you are looking for deep discussions of sexual issues. Read this book if you want to read one person's story.

I can't vouch for the accuracy or lack thereof,
but Heidi seems to be very forthright about everything
she says or does, so for me, the book rings true. Admittely,
I don't have that much experience with exotic dancers, but
her story seems humorous, entertaining ---and Heidi sounds like the kind of person I would love to meet. What a cheerful personality she seems to have! Most refreshing. To the bashers,
try giving the book another read--perhaps with a more open mind
and fewer biases.

Not that one of its students had to strip her way through school, but because it graduated such a terrible, sloppy writer! I bought the book as a joke for one of my friends, a Brown alum, and I couldn't resist reading it before I gave it to him. I marveled at how poor the writing was. Maybe she overscheduled herself at the strip club and had to pull an all nighter to meet her publishing deadline, because that's what the book read like. Brown should be a little more selective in its admission policy. At least if you admit a skank admit a smart, articulate one!

I purchased this book for my daughter. The book has some useful examples but is poorly prepared. The book looks the author just gathered a bunch of college essays and made them into an ebook. The book is poorly formatted and doesn't have page numbers. Most of the book is single space and difficult to read. The book has several types of essays, but there is no table of contents.

The author would do well to buy herself a book on how to use Microsoft word. How about some formatting please.

Buyer beware.