Entrepreneur
by MQW (Markeise Q. Washington)

Reviewed by: Cherri Millard

Who said a college degree was the only way to success? Get your education, graduate from college, get a job and climb the corporate ladder. For many, this is the only way of life. But not for Swift—a recent college graduate—who finds out the hard way after he is unsuccessful in landing a job. Aggravation kicks in and Swift looks to the streets for liberation where he and his best friend Block—a feared and respected hustler—combine their efforts for opportunity. Judging by the synopsis this is the story the author MQW (Markeise Q. Washington) set his sights on telling when he decided to pen this tale.

Swift and friends attempt to make some money hustling sneakers. They planned on getting them for an unbeatable price and then flipping them for a profit. But they get bamboozled; which marks the end of their get rich quick scheme. After this Swift loses his job because of his brother Malik, after he reluctantly makes a conscious effort to help him find employment. After he loses his job Swift comes to the realization that entrepreneurship is something that he must pursue wholeheartedly.

What is amazing about Entrepreneur is that: though the author stayed in the "showing" mode when he wanted to "show" us something, the writing is still read in a "telling" kind of way. The syntax, diction and/or sentence structure just didn't do it for me in this one. I found this book to be very slow, dull and awkward. At one point, the story actually shifts from third person to first person, I had go back and reread to be sure that I had read what I just processed. Between the pages, you'll find tons of lengthy narrative with stale action. You are confronted with quick bursts of characters, many whom come out of the Blue Nowhere. Much of the text is unorganized, what I liked to call "jamming" the story. The author quickly brings in new characters and then in order to make up for this sudden introduction, he then "jams" in information describing the character, instead of weaving in the characterization through dialogue and/or narrative.

Because of the windfall of description after each character is introduced, there was a traceable pattern of blocks of descriptive text following the introduction of each new person. Every time I saw a new name I knew a "block of descriptive" text would follow and it made the story very awkward, frustrating and formatted. I'd like to also add that, Entrepreneur seemed to still be in a first draft form, or at least not a draft that an author would hand over to his or her editor.

What did you dislike about this book?
The author jumps into situations without set up; there's a heavy sense of focus on things that don't add to the story (clothing, jewelry and other materialistic accessories). The action is dull, you don't see anything that is happening; no picture is painted. The book contains several unnecessary scene breaks that detracted from the story.

In addition the book cover portrays the likes of a young black male with a wad of cash and a cigar in hand, topped off with a ring and watch. After honing in on the cover it doesn't mirror what this book was about. Also, if I may be even more honest, the entire book cover is pixilated; the imagery and font/text is not clear. I would highly suggest that a new book cover be created, one that paints the picture of what "Entrepreneur" is trying to convey.

How can the author improve this book?
Some rewriting and heavy editing would do the book justice. There were a lot of redundancy and a focus on irrelevant things that did not add to the story being told; they should have been cut away. Basically some re-developing and editing may set this book on the right path.

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