Genre: Coming of Age/Action-Adventure
Description:
“At age eleven, Dave Powers concludes a profitable but error-ridden
venture selling illegal fireworks that leaves him brimming with confidence and
captivated by the promise of entrepreneurship.
Over the next few years, a series of tragic events shatters his world.
Dave must learn to navigate life's challenges, including basic survival,
business, and love. Upon entering the advertising world during the Mad Men era,
he struggles to find his way amid the excesses of nepotism, alcohol
consumption, and the exploitation of women. Can Dave find the maturity to
achieve his dreams? Or are his scars too deep to overcome?
Based on true events, On the Brink is a novel for young readers
beginning their own journey, nurturing adults trying to soften their failures,
as well as seasoned entrepreneurs and business executives.”
Author:
“Michael A. Sisti is an author, branding and marketing consultant, and
serial entrepreneur, having founded over twenty-five companies since age
eleven. An International Book Award winner for his debut novel, Executive
Crumple Zone, he has published five other novels, three humor books, and a
popular self-help book. He recently co-authored a pilot for a TV drama series,
and he provides design, editing, and production advice for several other
authors. He also writes and lectures on branding, marketing, creative thinking,
and entrepreneurship and has earned hundreds of regional and national awards,
including National Brand Excellence awards for Blue Cross Blue Shield. He
created an Emmy-nominated series on Rhode Island NBC affiliate Healthcare
Directions and published a companion magazine. Mike also created and wrote an
online column called Local Color. Now semi-retired, Mike continues to
advocate for entrepreneurs, volunteering as a lecturer at schools and
universities and providing pro bono services to small businesses.”
Appraisal:
It would be fair to say that I’m conflicted about my thoughts on this
book. This is far from this author’s first book. He has a small publisher
involved that presumably provided people with editorial expertise to polish
things up. There is a page of “praise” from various dignitaries prior to the
story praising what you’re going to be reading which is even labeled “Praise
Page” in the Table of Contents. Yes, I’ve read thousands of books in my life
and reviewed hundreds, but I found myself questioning my thoughts on this book,
wondering if I got it wrong, all those “experts” got it wrong, or maybe our
opinions just didn’t line up. I’ll probably ramble a bit below, but the short
version of the review is I liked the main character in spite of his flaws, and
in many ways it was a good story, but I found myself hitting patches where the
author’s writing style grated on me or the story was too over the top for me to
suspend disbelief. If you want more detail, read on.
One issue I had was a tendency to give too
much information about something in a way that while accurate, bogged things
down. For example, early in the book Dave Power, the main character, was taken by
his father on a week long camping trip. An entire chapter of the book (to be
fair, it was a short chapter, roughly 700 words), did nothing but passively
describe the area where they were camping and the preparations that Brad, Dave’s
father, went through prior to the trip. This description mentions that the area
has abundant wildlife (enough to give the reader a decent feel), but then lists
several specific animals, birds, and fish that are among those that populated
this area. The way this was approached felt like a brain dump that violated the
author’s maxim to “show, don’t tell.” The reader definitely got told instead of
shown here and there were several other places where this sort of thing happened.
My other issue was that I found I had way
too much trouble “suspending disbelief.” This is something a reader needs to do
to get into a story. Some genres, science fiction or fantasy for example, as a
reader you recognize that the story world is vastly different from the real
world and learn to deal with it. However, when the story takes place in the
real world it can’t get too far out there or the reader is more likely to
struggle. Maybe the old cliché about truth being stranger than fiction applies
here since the story is said to be “based on truth.” The dedication to what I’m
guessing is the author’s wife says that she “shared most of the experiences
described in this book.” However, I suspect the true story got stretched a bit
in some places (if not, the author is lucky to have not suffered any legal repercussions).
I did find myself getting drawn into Dave’s
story. It’s intense with constant ups and downs. Dave had a lot of smarts and
skills in the areas he worked in, but it seemed as though every time those
combined with hard work got him to a good place that something happened to cause
things to come crashing down. After a few cycles of this I was wondering if it
was ever going to stop and it also stretched my ability to buy into it.
There is definitely a good story in here
hidden among the not-so-good parts. Those of us who are older (Dave was born in
the early 50s, so much of the story happened many decades ago) will have some
flashbacks to the olden days, which might be a good thing. You kids who are
into stories from the olden days might enjoy a story that mostly takes place in
a time when cell phones weren’t a thing. Go ahead and give it a shot and see
what you think.
Buy now
from: Amazon US Amazon UK
FYI:
Some adult language.
Format/Typo
Issues:
This review is based on a pre-release “advance reviewer copy” so I can’t
gauge the final product in this area.
Rating: ***
Three Stars
Reviewed
by: BigAl
Approximate word count: 65-70,000 words