Reviews

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou

unhappybadger's review

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challenging informative slow-paced

3.75

emma_lynn_95's review against another edition

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dark informative inspiring tense medium-paced

5.0

slowcat17's review against another edition

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dark funny informative mysterious fast-paced

5.0

r3dgiant's review against another edition

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dark informative tense medium-paced

4.75

runjnee's review against another edition

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4.0

What a narrative, oof. The conwoman’s abilities are almost, but not quite, admirable. The choice to tell the story in not entirely chronological order is understandable but makes it no less confusing. I sat up into the wee hours a couple of nights to finish it, it really was hard to put down.

jenfantoni's review against another edition

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4.0

Fast paced and fascinating non-fiction account of a Silicon Valley startup that reads like fiction. I loved every minute of this one!

lizrosej's review against another edition

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informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

5.0

I loved Bad Blood. The author’s journalistic writing style lends itself to storytelling. Elizabeth Holmes is an unlikely villain. The book is readable and fascinating. It reads like fiction but it’s all true. 

bruinuclafan's review against another edition

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4.0

Great investigative journalism. Decent writing but could have been tighter. Some of the commentary on the legal side was over-the-top ("the letter reserved all right and remedies"), but as a lawyer myself I'm probably used to brushing off that legalese. In any event, the former employees were clearly scared out of their minds with lawyers hounding them.

The story itself is insane. It's amazing how far this fraud went and what it took to end it.

lizward92's review against another edition

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5.0

Really compelling and surprisingly entertaining. Look at me being a nonfiction girlie

georgereads982's review against another edition

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3.5

The story of theranos and its downfall was compelling to begin with, however it quickly became confusing as more and more employees/teams/investors/complicated medical jargon was introduced.  I think John Carreryou's narrative started out strong, but as he introduced himself into the story it quickly became messy, jumping from person to person and situation to situation with no real sense of structure.  

The level of detail was also frustratingly inconsistent.  Some details that seemed unimportant were mentioned multiple times (take a shot everytime he mentions people being thrown by Elizabeth's "deep" voice) whereas moments that provided context and allowed the story to progress were only mentioned briefly or never mentioned again - particularly with regard to deals that Elizabeth made and the manipulation she engaged in.  The downfall of theranos and everything that happened after the Wall Street Journal article was completely glossed over which was a strange choice.  Carreryou only wrote one chapter about the aftermath of his article and how theranos was affected despite the (sometimes unnecessary) detail he went into regarding trivial things within the company in its early years.  

Overall Bad Blood was an interesting and compelling read but it could have done with a bit of fine tuning.