I am completed with Genuine Authentic: The Real Life of Ralph Lauren by Michael Gross, published 2003. The company always has financial struggles to deal with; it has been a common theme throughout the novel’s entirety. This time Polo’s major enemy is making the company public, meaning stocks are sold on Wall Street in the company’s name now. Gross describes Lauren as excited at first, yet worried for what this new improvement may bring to the company. The stocks show promising numbers, Gross explains, but after months have gone by they are more of a burden than a success. Lauren is stressed more than normal, dealing with the stocks and his children all leaving for college to create their own legacy. Gross emphasizes the stress over Lauren’s…show more content… The title is misleading. Gross does not focus around the life of Ralph Lauren while his company is growing, but instead his focus is on the financial struggles Polo and Lauren went through to finally have a profitable $1 billion company. Readers having a financial background or a strong knowledge in the specifics of financing can better understand what Gross is trying to display. Naive readers get a general idea but often are left confused after a few sentences go by about some financial struggle the company is having. While the novel is about Polo, a fashion brand, I do not think readers interested in fashion would enjoy the book. Gross is a journalist, not a fashion editor. Rarely is fashion terminology used in Gross’s writing, and if it is the descriptions are followed with the financial problems with those products or are currently describing a financial problem. Gross is not planning to target a fashion audience, but the title misleads his theme that…show more content… He does write chronologically, but chapters bounce around from one topic to another that is totally different or almost the same. They go from pro-Ralph Lauren to anti, positive-toned to negative, or so forth. Readers can’t pick out one strong style Gross writes with because it is continually changing. However he does use strong sources to support his writing. Primary sources drive his novel forward; the whole book is based off the interview with Ralph Lauren himself. Gross goes beyond most author’s requirements, searching for the significant people in Lauren’s life whose quotes make interesting topics for his novel. These quotes make his points well-developed by the time readers reach the ending. Gross also gets into fine detail about the people involved, getting opinions from interviews of multiple other people to write to readers a strong description of this person’s character. The dedication like this that Gross puts into the novel create successful, well-developed points throughout. Gross could have a much more accurate audience if he were to have a better title to suit his writing. The title he has implies that the novel is about Lauren’s home and personal life behind his life with Polo. Instead Gross seems to write exclusively about Lauren’s life involving Polo and his actions that changed Polo, rather than what the title portrays. It sets a wrong tone in the reader’s mind about what the novel was going to cover.
