Vera P. (verap) reviewed on 10/9/2009 + 30 more book reviews

I wanted to like this book, I really did. The premise was great - a man who's had everything pretty much handed to him most of his life loses his job and has to learn the value of hard labor. Along the way he learns that he has been prejudiced and unfair in his perceptions of others.

As great as the premise was, the resulting book was just slightly short of terrible. Gill does not have a talent for writing (to say the least) and the whole memoir sounds like a long conversation. He dips into his past on almost every page and often for no reason, and has no connections that make the memoir an interconnected piece, instead of a jumbled collection of memories.

I appreciate his struggles and his attempts to make the best out of a bad situation, but the reality is, stories like his happen every day. There are plenty of displaced executives working as waiters, and doctors from other countries who are reduced to cashiering jobs at a local pharmacy (I've worked with many of them). While it's great that Gill wanted to bring light to his experience, he should have done justice to himself and others in his shoes and written a more coherent book.

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