Truth in Advertising

by John Kenney

Finbar Dolan is lost and lonely. Except he doesn't know it. Despite escaping his blue-collar Boston upbringing to carve out a mildly successful career at a Madison Avenue ad agency, he's a bit of a mess and closing in on forty. He's recently called off his wedding. Now, a few days before Christmas, he's forced to cancel a long-postponed vacation in order to write, produce, and edit a Superbowl commercial for his diaper account in record time.

Fortunately, it gets worse. He learns that his long-estranged and once-abusive father has fallen ill. And that neither his brothers nor his sister intend to visit. It's a wake-up call for Fin to re-evaluate the choices he's made, admit that he's falling for his co-worker Phoebe, question the importance of diapers in his life, and finally tell the truth about his life and his past.

• ISBN10: 1472152107
• ISBN13: 9781472152107
• Publish Date: 7 July 2016 (first published 22 January 2013)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
• Imprint: Corsair
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 336
• Language: English

Reviews

[Whitney @ First Impressions Reviews]

I stopped reading Truth in Advertising on Christmas day (Christmas day in the book that is) The back cover made it sound witty and interesting, both of which it was not.

The novel is a fictional account of Fin Dolen, a sad lonely man assigned to a diapers commercial over the Christmas holidays. It is long winded, and disjointed, with an ADHD attempt at witty writing. There were actually a few moments where I was reminded of a David Sedaris' panache but those were fleeting and rather reverted back to a moronic, sophomoric teenage boy sense of humor. An example being a commercial using the Old MacDonald song, a chicken saying "a cock, cock here and a cock, cock there." Thus they have a "cock problem". It's funny the first time but like all burp and fart jokes they start to stink pretty fast.

There were also fleeting mentions of an ex-fiance but they were very jagged and felt like a sub-plot the author started and then forgot to remove. In general Fin was an unlikeable character who I really could have cared less about. I can't place a finger on it but there was just something about him that rubbed me the wrong way; so much so (and excuse the pun) but I could not even make it to the "Fin" of this book.