Francesco della Barba is the key player in this tale of the shaping of the Benetton brand and their expansion in geographical territories and other areas like F1.
I was hoping for a story filled with
intrigue and glamour, but I felt the story jumped all over the place. Not just
with the timeline but also with the characters (some who are named but never
introduced and some who appear only briefly). A lot of personal information was
given in the story about the author that did not necessarily have to do with
the idea behind the book. I felt it didn’t move the story forward and seemed
instead like a book about the author. For example, he spent a lot of time
discussing how he felt about the differences between Italian road rules and English
road rules – rather odd and nothing to do with the company. And while telling
the reader how people have affairs in Dubai it might have seemed interesting
additional information, it came across rather flippantly and had nothing to do
with Benetton itself.
A lot was offered about sales and stores
and buyouts but the narrative did not feel cohesive. If it had followed a
timeline and his involvement in the timeline, it would have made more sense. I
was quite looking forward to the parts about the F1 involvement but very little
was said about this. What he does explain well are the egos and decisions based
on tradition instead of forward thinking.
What really let this book down was the
grammar usage (which got worse as the book went on), punctuation errors, and
incorrect words used. There was a lot of passive voice and saying things like “the
car of my uncle” or “I asked to the agent”. Words were used that I couldn’t even
work out the error like “he was discontinue in his behaviour” – was this meant
to mean that his behaviour lacked continuity? Then there were the outright
incorrect words like “weather (whether) you bought it in London” or “waving
(waiving) the ticket” but the best was the “walking (walk-in) refrigerator”.
I had high hopes for this book but it was
disjointed and since it was so short, lacked the full impact the author may
have had on the brand.
Many thanks to Loudhailer Books for the
opportunity to review the book.
It gets an average three out of five quills
from me.
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