Mafia Girl Hardcover – March 1, 2014

Gina might be a crime boss’s daughter, but her struggles are the common adolescents’ angst writ large. As she navigates the perils and pleasures of her high school days—the friendships, the intrigues, the jealousies, the academic pressure, and her first real romantic attachment—she mirrors ( and maybe also magnifies) the lives of ordinary teenagers.True, Gina’s father is under surveillance by the feds, but as Deborah Blumenthal skillfully shows, all young people must deal with their parents’ baggage to some extent. That Gina’s background is more complex than most is what makes this story so compelling. One of my favorite parts of the book is when Gina, campaigning for school president, defends herself against a nasty classmate’s comment. “…what’s more important is to follow your heart and do what you think is right because that’s the way I live and that’s exactly why I’m running for president.” A crucial message for all!Mafia Girl is full of surprising twists and turns. It is simultaneously hilarious and heartbreaking. It’s the story of friendship and betrayal, but most importantly of family loyalty and love.

I was totally hooked on the Gia/Michael romance and I loved her heartwarming friendship with the lonely and sad Clive. The ending showed a lot of promise for Gia's future and I'm hoping there's a follow up book coming soon!

So much fun to read---a well-written story about the NYC privileged Mafia daughter told in her high energy voice! I couldn't put it down! Please write her next story!

I really loved this book I wish there was an sequel

Gia is the teenage daughter of a Mafia don who is accustomed to a life of luxury, status, and getting whatever she wants. One day she's riding shotgun in a car stolen by her friend Ro (Rosemarie). They get pulled over for speeding and once the arresting officer finds out both girls are underage and neither seem to be the legal owner of the car, he hauls them into the station. Gia's family connections get her free of charges in a hurry, but not before she develops a hardcore crush for that officer, Michael, whom she cringingly dubs "Officer Hottie". Gia then sets out to get him to fall for her, basically stalking him at all his hang-out places while he's off-duty. However, her lust-driven activities are quickly halted when her father finds himself in serious legal trouble, a mess his top-notch lawyer might actually be unable to get him out off. Suddenly, instead of enjoying a fun flirtation, Gia is watching her family and life as she knows it crumble before her eyes.Being quite the fan of mafia-themed fiction (one of my all-time favorite movies is GoodFellas!), I thought this would be right up my alley. I figured this would be a more light-hearted take on the theme... mafia girl going for young cop... could be cute, right? But man, the writing here felt all over the place. Incredibly amateurish, just riddled with mediocrity. I was disappointed at how unlikeable Gia turned out to be. I honestly struggled to find anything that would firmly plant me on the Team Gia side. Her dialogue was made up of SO much unnecessary profanity and annoyingly abbreviated words. Sure, a lot of teens like to speak that way, but Gia's speech went far past what you'd hear from the average American teen. It struck me more as the type of thing where an adult was trying to take on that way of speaking but overreaching it, killing the believability.Then there was the whole what-are-they-exactly confusing relationship between Gia and Michael. Gia plays the sex-kitten image so hard it's actually embarrasing to read, because she's just going at it too hard. You want to scream for her to pull back and stop being a creeper! And Michael was just odd. She's in high school, he's on the police force. There should have been no question where his stance should be but he goes from "aww no I shouldn't" to "nope, I totally need to be all up in that". His "sexy" dialogue -- if anyone could even remotely call it that -- pulled as many grossed out groans from me as Gia's did, maybe more! I'm sorry, there was just something about the way he was written that came off as too To Catch A Predator to me. And Gia spends the majority of the story in a pretty consistent spoiled brat mode, so... hard to root for a guy who clearly just wants her because she's hot, regardless of how irritating she'd be long-term.The few things that I give a few redeeming points for: I liked the scenes between Gia and her father and the ones with Gia and her best friend Clive. Clive was actually my favorite character in the whole book and offered the one and only plot twist for me -- I did not expect his story to have such a dark vein in there. In fact, it was only after Clive reveals his secret, and Gia's response to it, that I started to see a glimmer of something admirable in her. There was also a scene shortly after that moment when Gia fights back against having her life uprooted yet again.... but just I was starting to think her character was having a turning point, she went back to her old bratty ways and the story was lost for me again.:-(I still think the concept for the story is a cute one, but my impression was that it might have worked a bit better for me if Gia had been even just a few years older. Giving her those few extra years to mentally mature could've made all the difference in this wannabe love story.

You can find my full review of Mafia Girl along with casting choices on my blog, mereadalot(dot)net.Deborah mixes the heavy with the lite in this novel and the effect is like creme brulee for the senses.Gia is a Prada-toting, Rhianna-listening, family-loving, loyal chick. She's dynamic. Gia drives this story with a constant stream of internal dialogue filled with acronyms and colloquialisms. Her thoughts are as fast, dirty, and diverse as a New York subway. Gia, is living it up in Manhattan with her family and goes to a super exclusive school that you have to pay to get into. Gia has a bright idea to run for class president one day because she wants to make her father proud and defy what the haters think of "The Don's" daughter. Despite being a very materialistic character, we are given glimpses of a deeper layer to Gia when she faces battles that are brought on by association. There were scenes in this story that I sat back and thought to myself, "Dear Lord, puh-leeeaze do not let my daughter turn out like that or hang out with people like that." But this character that Deborah is letting us be a part of for a few hundred pages is a pitch perfect example of girls in that socioeconomic context. This is where that creme brulee comparison comes in; it's like we are witnessing Gia on the brink of breaking through that hard, superficial layer to get to the good stuff, of who she is outside of her father's shadow.Michael is the ingredient that makes this story a romance. He's a hot cop with a complicated past and meets Gia after pulling her over. Although I felt like the "romance" was an afterthought in this book, it still delivered some major sizzle in an "Alison DiLaurentis+Ezra Fitz" kind of way. The back-and-forth I-want-to-but-I-shouldn't dramance (did I just invent that word?) between Michael and Gia (I'm shipping Mia) was ridiculous, yet romantic and just right. I would have liked more Mia time in Mafia Girl but I'm grateful that Michael wasn't just some hot guy; he's fleshed out pretty well despite his sparse appearances.The (awesome, glossy, bling-bling, YES) cover of Mafia Girl might be misleading. Yes, it's "wildly entertaining" and full of all kinds of shallow shenanigans but there's layers here that would challenge any Chicago-style deep dish pizza. We get a private-eye view of the every day musings of a complicated, spoiled rich girl who's grasp on her immediate reality is unraveling. She's always played dumb about the line of work her father is in and she's never asked questions about it. But there's a shift in Gia's paradigm that reveals a moving, coming of age story. I loved that Deborah Blumenthal showed the contradictory characteristics of a Mafia family that is as immersed in their faith as they are in the crime that keeps them in Chandon and Chanel. This novel epitomizes what it is to finally start questioning your beliefs, your morals, your actions, and how that changes a person. I'm glad Gia was brave enough to take us along for that life-changing ride.Mafia Girl was on point. Deborah infuses just the right amount of stereo-types and name dropping (The Sopranos, The Godfather) to give this book flavor. Nothing's over done, everything's just right. Maybe it's because my dog's name is Guido, maybe it's because I'm Italian and grew up hearing stories about my family and the mob. Whatever the reason, I loved this book and recommend it to SMART READERS. It takes a brainy kind of person, someone who's able to think outside of the box and their own experiences to really enjoy Mafia Girl.