This is far from being a "bad book. Some of the points raised in this review are out of context. While some descriptions of the core HFT processes/issues in the book are naive or simple, they are revisited multiple times and more detail is added as the characters in the book learn more.
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You should back those arguments up with evidence. Which points in the review are refuted in the book?
I'm in the middle of the book. Point 10, "Without co-location, the investors will fight for the spaces close to the exchange -- across the street, a block away, 2 blocks away, etc.", seems to my unsophisticated reading to be already directly addressed:
63.36%: "The NYSE had ... built this 4000,000-square-foot fortress in the middle of nowhere ... the moment they announced their plans HFT firms began to buy up land surrounding the fort ... the NYSE somehow persuaded the SEC to let them make a rule for themselves: Any banks or brokers or HFT firms that did not buy space inside the fort would be allowed to connect to the NYSE in or of two places: Newark, New Jersey, or Manhattan. The time required to move a signal ... undermined HFT strategies ... "There was a precedent: They'd let NYSE do it,"..."
So to my unsophisticated eye, this sophisticated reviewer is blowing a bit of smoke. Not all smoke, but a bit of it at least.
<i>13) "In August 2013, the Goldman automated trading system generated a bunch of crazy and embarrassing trades that lost Goldman hundreds of millions of dollars..." Yes, but this was on the Options market, on Options exchanges, and has nothing to do with the rest of the book.</i>
I'm beginning to suspect the author is flat out dishonest. The Goldman cock-up is used as a <i>defense</i> of Goldman. Lewis says that unlike other firms they had a legitimate excuse for not trading with IEX - they didn't trust their systems. So, no the cockup had nothing in particular to do with HFT, but Lewis never implied that it did, and it is impossible to read that paragraph and come to another conclusion honestly. The review author is not shooting straight.
Still reading. On #6, I never got that impression; Lewis refers repeatedly to the digitalisation of the exchanges bringing prices down. e.g.:
75.73%: "A few thought it was important to remember that technology had lowered their trading costs from what they had been decades earlier - and half-turned a half-blind eye to the stunts Wall Street intermediaries had pulled to prevent technology from lowering those costs even further."