[4] It tells of the confusion inherent in their Apple Corps business enterprise and how, within a year, the company's precarious financial position attracted the interest of Allen Klein,[4] whose managerial appointment further divided the band members.

[14] In her review for The Independent, Liz Thomson likened You Never Give Me Your Money to a sequel to The Longest Cocktail Party, Richard DiLello's 1972 memoir covering the early years of Apple Corps, adding: "Doggett's arcane detail will be too much for all but diehard fans, but what's most striking is the naiveté of the four men at the heart of the story.

"[15] Sinclair McKay of The Daily Telegraph described the book as "thoroughly engrossing" and found the author's treatment of the individual protagonists, including the former Beatles, Ono, Linda McCartney and Klein, "admirably even-handed" since "everyone comes in for a pasting.

[4] According to Doggett, in the same July 2010 blog post, the book's only unfavourable review up to that point was a piece in The Mail on Sunday by Hunter Davies, author of the Beatles' 1968 self-titled authorised biography.

[10] David Ulin of the Los Angeles Times described the book as "elegant and deeply researched", and especially praised the author's "sense of the textures, the delicate interplay of individual and collective history, that continued to define the members of the Beatles long after they had ceased to function as a cohesive entity".

"[5] Marjorie Kehe, writing in The Christian Science Monitor, similarly found Doggett's tone "always respectful and often rather affectionate" towards the former Beatles, and said that by drawing on viewpoints from several other individuals in their circle, he creates "a sophisticated narrative that recognizes that the mistakes and miscues were too multiple to attribute to any one figure".