What a book. Completely immersed. Great character and story development. So much drama and action described to a T! I honestly can’t believe how much I loved it. I have so much love for Gino, Lucky, Costa, Carrie and Marco - all powerful and badass. Amazing -yet sad- backstories to root for the characters’ way to the top. Can’t wait to finish the series!

Loved this, would give it 4.5stars outta 5... It was a page turning, sopranos-esque family drama! Brilliant holiday read

3.5 stars

I read this for Peter Monn's Book Club.

Plot & Pacing

The plot for this one was intriguing and unpredictable for the most part. It was like a historical soap opera with heavy mafia elements. While I did enjoy it, I often felt that the book dragged on much more than was necessary and that a good bit of it was just filler. While I'm fine with sex scenes, it felt like overkill in this book and detracted from the story a good deal of the time.

Setting & World-Building

I don't know too much about the time periods mentioned--the 1920s to 1970s--or most of the places mentioned, such as New York and Las Vegas, but it felt authentic and explored some of the more taboo parts of society, such as the mafia, gambling and prostitution.


Characters & Development

I didn't really like many of the characters but they are very flawed. Still, they had interesting backgrounds and life experiences. Gino Santangelo was fascinating to read about even though he had some pretty major flaws. I think if he had been more open minded about women that I would have liked him better.

Carrie's story was heartbreaking and while you later see how she connects in regards to Gino, her story seemed to be a bit unnecessary for this book. I haven't read the others though so maybe her back story ties more into those. Anyway, I did feel and root for Carrie. I also liked Bernard and Lucille and for their help in regards to Carrie.

Costa and Jennifer were pretty decent characters and I did admire Costa's loyalty to Gino, even though there were times when it was questionable.

Lucky Santangelo was a pretty interesting character and I liked how independent she tried to be.

Enzio made for an interesting "villain."

Character Relationships

The character relationships were interesting, especially when it comes to the Santangelos. There's a lot of family conflict and it was fun seeing how all of that played out. I did feel bad for how Dario's life turned out, though, and that no one seemed able to accept his sexuality even though that was probably realistic for the times.

I liked Carrie's relationship with Bernard even though their actual time together was very brief.

Carrie's family was the worst.

Her mother should have just saved herself.

Writing & Voice

The writing was pleasantly easy to read, even with subjects I wasn't familiar with. The voices of the characters were good for a 3rd person POV.

Climax & Ending

The climax didn't surprise me and seemed to happen a little too fast considering how much other parts of the books dragged but I did like how everything played out. The overall ending wraps things up well for future books.

Overall, I'd give it 3 stars. I would have given it 3.5 or 4 if it hadn't dragged on so long and seemed filled with unnecessary details and sex scenes that didn't really add much to the plot for me. I have Lucky but I'm not sure if I want to continue with the series or not.

Say what you want about these 70s sagas, they aren't boring. If you can get past the objectionable language of certain characters and moments of squick you'll be fine. This book has everything: a story spanning several decades; abuse; prostitution; sex; a questionable moment like in Empire Strikes Back (you know what I'm talking about).

Oh, and Jackie wrote five sequels? Oh dear...

Fun book, with a lot of intrigue, and things that seem impossible in a 'normal' world still happen.

Both terrible & glorious, this headlong rush through the past century of vice-ridden New York rides on the shoulders of a large cast of characters who become less compelling as the present (1977) approaches: Lucky Santangelo seems wooden & schizophrenic after the rich, complicated portraits of her gangster father Gino and the star-crossed former prostitute Carrie Berkley. Still, I read the whole thing, and it was a MILLION pages, so there was some *je ne sais quoi* going on...