Michael Lewis (author of Moneyball, The Big Short, The Blind Side and many others) is a very funny writer, with a keen eye for the absurd and a sharp wit that can make you laugh out loud. His latest book, Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World is no exception. More than once I found myself telling anybody who would listen, “You’ve got to hear this…it’s hilarious.”

The purpose of the book is to visit places around the world where the debt crisis has pushed people to the brink. And then to ask why that’s happening in that particular place. It’s a focus on culture as much as anything, and Lewis probes  the weaknesses within a culture that allowed massive debts to accumulate. Whether in Iceland, Ireland, Greece, Germany or California, Lewis is skewering a group of people who let themselves fall for the debt trap.

His insights into the people living in these places is hilarious. I laughed at the Icelandic men who, like drivers who won’t listen to their wives and stop for directions, drove their country into a pit. Or the Greek citizens who won’t pay taxes and vilify monks for their problems. Or the uptight Germans who kept everything spiffy at home but bought crap in countries all over the world (Lewis is fixated on a supposed German fixation with crap … and I’m being polite with my choice of words).

The problem with the book is that Lewis tries so hard to be funny that he paints mere characterizations of people. They seem one dimensional and incomplete. It feels more like a comedy routine meant to ridicule those who fell into the debt trap rather than insights about the temptations of that debt. And the book comes with the advantage of hindsight…it’s easy to see now that a lot of bond buyers were hoodwinked, but hardly anybody knew that at the time, so is it really fair to turn those people into comic characters of bumbling inability? Perhaps, but it doesn’t make for a good book about a serious subject.

If you like to laugh, you’ll love this book. But if you want to get to the bottom of the debt crisis and how it turned into a global crisis, this book won’t offer much.