Entrepreneur - M.Q.W. ~ Reads4Pleasure

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Entrepreneur - M.Q.W.

In what has become all too familiar in the street lit genre, Entrepreneur is just more of the same. At first glance it would appear that this is the story of a young man from a decent family who has recently graduated from high school and is on the path to college. He meets with some bumps along the way and turns to the streets. So now that I've got the synopsis out of the way, let's talk about how this book failed and why it could have been better than it was.

I'm a stickler for consistency with characters, time lines, story lines, etc. By page 15, a blatant discrepancy was staring me in the face. One of the characters, Swift, has just completed high school at a private school that he attended for six years. Going into the school, he was considered to be of above average intelligence. At some point in his six years he becomes a problem student and doubts his ability to get into college. Keep in mind that this is a private school. Someone is paying for him to be there and someone is being paid to teach him. I've had plenty of experience with private schools and it's a rare one that will allow a problem student, especially one who is not from a wealthy family, to stay on campus for six years. It is also unfathomable that that same school would not provide guidance in the form of an adviser to assist with the search for a college willing to accept them.

That scenario threw me off, but I continued and was confronted with yet another inconsistency a page later. Swift scrambled to find a college to accept him after he waited until the last minute to apply. His parents drove him to look at the one college he was accepted to and then announced that they had no intention on paying for it. That begs the question, why did they bother to take him. He eventually ends up at community college and I'm assuming that he financed that education with loans. So then why didn't he apply for financial aid and/or loans to pay for the four year school he really wanted to attend?

Armed with his associates in business, Swift begins for applying for jobs...at the mall. By this point, I'm giving this book the serious side eye. High school students work at the mall without a high school diploma. Why bother to get a degree, even an associates, if your only plan is to work a minimum wage job? Swift was supposed to have dreams of being an entrepreneur from a young age, but somehow I don't think his definition is the same as Merriam-Webster.

All of that aside, Swift finds work at Foot Locker and all is going well until his drug addicted brother, who he managed to get hired, leaves the boss hanging. This results in Swift getting fired as well. Fed up with his family, Swift decides it's time to move out. He decides to purchase a house by putting up "every nickel I had, plus some payday loans, as a down payment." Yes, you read that right. The unemployed young man wants to purchase a house with the money he's saved from his minimum wage job AND payday loans. What's even more ridiculous is that someone sells him a house!

Swift's best friend, Block, who is a major drug dealer (who just happened to have attended the same private school), goes to jail and Swift steps in to take over his empire. Ok, so there's more to the story, but I'm so over it.

What did you like about this book?
It was a quick read.

What didn't you like about this book?
It was inconsistent.

What could the author do to improve this book?
Better fact checking would serve him well.