I very much enjoyed this story. The writing is extremely good, quietly understated, and yet manages to get inside the characters heads.
It is a story about the Mafia in early twentieth century Brooklyn. I've not read any other Mafia books but I would assume it is not typical. This the story of two daughters who become best friends, growing up and coming of age within the confines of firstly their own family's and secondly the Mafia Family. Sofia is strong willed and apparently the more dominant of the two girls, while Antonia, scarred by her father's disappearance when she is young, is more bookish. Their friendship waxes and wanes according to their outside interests but in the end the blood bond they made as children proves strong.
Set against a backdrop of the depression and the war years when the Mafia' fortunes are also on a roller coaster as they struggle for territory and interests against competitors, Sofia and Antonia's families have to rise to the occasion more than once.
The use of the present tense in the writing helps carry the plot forward, while the details of meals prepared for Sunday meals, and the Brooklyn streets add authenticity. All the female characters are well drawn and well rounded. The men are a little more wooden and stereotyped, perhaps, but when push comes to shove they will do everything for the Family.
Recommended.
With thanks to Netgalley and HarperCollins UK, HarperFiction for my advance copy.

I will admit to getting my characters mixed up a few times whilst reading this book. Who was married to whom, whose grandma is she and so on. I never did work out why one family was still getting a cut from another one and how the heck did the Jewish family get caught between the Italians when they were dealing with different types of merchandise?
I felt sorry for Paulo and Saul who started out doing jobs they were good at but when the jobs disappeared were moved on to doing things that did not suit them. The Family had no experience in redundancy payments unless you count brass in the head.
It was readable but not a page turner.

The final 10% of this book was excellent, the realisation that their pasts and futures were coalescing because of the actions they were about to take.
Unfortunately the story up to this point dragged slowly through all their lives to explain how they got to the decisions they had to make.

As the blurb indicates this novel has strong elements of both the Elena Ferrante Neapolitan series and The Godfather so I didn’t have particularly high expectations. Luckily the writing is of a high enough quality for the reader to get caught up in the lives of the characters as they try to avoid their “obligations” to The Family in prohibition era New York. An excellent historical read with enough of a twist at the end to keep you on your toes.

I was drawn to this book by the Mafia connections in the storyline. It is however much more than a book about "The Mob".
The precis and cover could lead to it being classed as a book for a mainly female audience but its a 76-year-old male writing this review:
The story follows the lives of two young women from birth to mid-twenties with a timeline running from 1927 to the late 1940s. Both are born into families with strong mafia connections hence the title of the book. As you would expect from the subject matter there is some violence but it is written about in such an understated way that it feels more real and shocking than a lot of more graphic scenes in other books. The title of the book is ambiguous in that it can refer to the family of the two main characters or the wider Mafia Family. The plot vividly portrays the tensions that arise trying to be loyal to both versions as the girls grow up and start to experience adult life. Both marry into the wider "family" and become mothers at a young age. The bonds of friendship are strained but never broken as the friends' lives start to take different directions.
This is a novel of high quality, about friendship and the meaning of family which drew me in with its clever plotting and the quality of the writing. A book I can recommend without reservation

Wow, powerful, vengeful and just all round intriguing, fascinating and thrilling. It tells the story of fiery love and passion of universal fears of growing up and loss and soul destroying moments that can break you but also moments of building yourself back to becoming stronger a new you. It’s about friendship and more importantly Family. The loves, the hurts and of course loyalty. This is a fantastic book and one I just love.

Sofia Colicchio and Antonia Russo are friends. Their parents are friends and their childhood world is a small neighbourhood of Red Hook, Brooklyn. Its a neighbourhood where outsiders arent welcome and The Family comes first, always.

I found this a powerful and moving novel that showed the good, the bad and the ugly in glorious technicolour, perfectly describing both the relationships and the setting. I was captivated from start to finish.

If you liked Elena Ferrante's novels I suspect you'll like this one too.

What a mesmerising book. I was completely submerged in the lives of Sofia and Antonia and the wider Family. There is such compelling detail, and rounded characters of these men who love their family but can be so violent but the women shine out as the real backbone to the family. The ending is tremendous and I thought the writing was superb, with a wonderful sense of time and place and family bonds.

When I began reading this book, I was completely entranced by the rhythm and poetry of Naomi Krupitsky's writing. Sofia and Antonia were as real to me as if I actually knew them. The slow pace and the intricate detail of every aspect of the girls' lives was beautifully done. I found this to be so of all the female characters, every one of whom suffered doubts, fears and discrimination as members of 'The Family'. The male characters never came alive for me in the same way because I felt I was only seeing one side of them. Although Krupitsky didn't go into quite the same depth as she did with the women, there was enough pain and angst there to sympathise with them (to a limited extent). What I found lacking was any sense of the coldness and brutality they should have brought to the story (with one exception).
I found the middle section of the book interminable and nearly gave up in spite of the wonderful writing. I'm glad I didn't because the ending was so unexpected that it brought me back into the story again. I had guessed some of it but there was a neat little twist at the end which I appreciated.
Sadly, the drag of the middle section cost this otherwise excellent book its fifth star.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This was a cross between The Godfather and My Brilliant Friend. It is the story of Antonia and Sophia and their lives within the "family" in New York in the 1940s. Joey, Sofia's father is powerful and recruits Paolo and Saul, Antonia and Sophia's husbands to work for him. The story is told in the present tense which gives it an intensity and a feeling of foreboding. The four main characters are all strong and their soul searching and driving passions are described in detail. The mothers of the girls, Lina and Rosa, are both broken in different ways. Both the husbands look for a way out but find themselves trapped by the chains of the family. This is a compelling and well-told story which is gripping from beginning to end.