Blog Tour Review, The Family

posted in: blog tour, Sherry | 1


THE FAMILY
by Naomi Krupitsky

6th January 2022 | Borough Press
Hardback, eBook & audio

Amazon | Goodreads

About the book:

A captivating debut novel about the tangled fates of two best friends and daughters of the Italian mafia, and a coming-of-age story of twentieth-century Brooklyn itself.

Two daughters. Two families. One inescapable fate.

Sofia Colicchio is a free spirit, loud and untamed. Antonia Russo is thoughtful, ever observing the world around her. Best friends since birth, they live in the shadow of their fathers’ unspoken community: the Family. Sunday dinners gather them each week to feast, discuss business, and renew the intoxicating bond borne of blood and love.  But the disappearance of Antonia’s father drives a whisper-thin wedge between the girls as they grow into women, wives, mothers, and leaders. And as they push against the boundaries of society’s expectations and fight to preserve their complex but life-sustaining friendship, one fateful night their loyalty to each other and the Family will be tested.  Only one of them can pull the trigger before it’s too late.

The Family explores the complicated bonds of female friendship, marriage, and family secrets, as well as the pressure placed on women in history to conform to
a certain mould, and how that conformity changes a person. It shines a light on the role of women in the Mafia and charts the history of one of New York’s most
infamous neighbourhoods.

My review:

I was intrigued by a book about the Mafia envisioning a Sopranos type story, but the book is really about the friendship of two daughters of Mafia men.  It starts when they are children, playing together and works its way until they are adults with families of their own.  

I was first drawn to the cover.  I can’t say why, but it made me want to read the book.  Then I just kept seeing it everywhere.  I’ll admit I was a little disappointed at the start.  I didn’t really connect with any of the characters and the book moved at a slow pace.  But I really grew engrossed and couldn’t put it down.  I just had to see what happened to Antonia and Sofia and I really rooted for what would happen.  

I like the real portrayal of friends.  The ebb and flow of their relationship.  And the real struggles the girls had as they grew up in a time that didn’t favor forward thinking women.  

I recommend this for anyone wanting to read a historical novel that doesn’t focus on a war.  The plot spans the second world war, but it doesn’t drive the plot.

Sherry

About the author:

Naomi Krupitsky attended NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study and is an assistant editor at the Vida Review and a bookseller at Black Bird Bookstore. She lives in San Francisco but calls many places home. The Family is her first novel.

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