Formerly Fingerman - Joe Nelms [Review]

Title: Formerly Fingerman

Author: Joe Nelms

Genre: Fiction, Comedy

Publisher: Gallery Books

Publishing date: January 11^th 2015  

Pages: 288   

Rating

★★★☆☆

Hello, today I’m reviewing Formerly Fingerman by Joe Nelms.

This book tells us the story of Brad Fingerman, who was an art director in the glamorous world of New York advertising. He had the respect of his peers, a beautiful wife, and a bright future. That is, his future was bright before he spectacularly nuked his career, discovered his wife's infidelity, and witnessed a high-profile Mafia hit in a Midtown elevator. Now Brad's unemployed, divorced, and the government's key witness in a major murder trial.

This is a short and light read, to be honest the premise didn’t caught my attention that much but I wanted to unhaul it so I decided to give it a try, what if I liked it?

This book has a light story with a comical tone to it, or at least it pretends to be comical. Regarding to humor, I’m really hard to please, what most people might find funny I don’t… still this seemed funny sometimes, not enough to make laugh but maybe I smiled or something while reading it.

The main character was interesting, he was from a different social class than me, so I couldn’t

actually identify myself with him but still I think he was kind of realistic given the setting and background he has. Brad is a flawed main character, he has realistic reactions to what happens to him but I didn’t like that he was a compulsive liar, and kind of shameless about it.

The book is written in third person and follows the story of 4 different characters, Brad; Britany, an FBI agent; Malcom, a judge; and Frank, the mafia leader. The story of Malcom, the judge, felt pointless, it didn’t add anything to the story and he wasn’t even important for the story to unfold, so I skimmed his chapters.

This is not the type of book I read, so I thought it was something fresh and gave me a break from my typical YA fantasy. The book has some action, unique characters and situations, and what I liked the most was the ending, it was unexpected and wanting to knowing how the problem Brad was facing was resolved was what kept me reading.

If you are looking for a light, short, kinda humorous and entertaining FBI/Mafia story with a clueless character, this book might be for you. It’s a story you don’t have to take seriously and has fast pacing, so it’s an easy and a quick read.