In Brooklyn Story by Suzanne Corso, a half Jewish and half Italian girl, Samantha Bonti comes of age. She lives with her wise and loving Jewish grandmother and her mother. Her mother is depressed, sick and addicted and offers very little to her daughter. They are on welfare but Sam dreams of buying things for her mother and grandmother after she is a writer. But first she has to make it through high school. Her best friend, Janice Caputo, unfortunately introduces her to Tony Kroon. He is very handsome and Sam feels so excited that he is interested in her.

But Tony, half Italian and half Catholic is bad news for her. He wants to make it big in the Mob. She is really naive and it takes her a long time to face reality and realize that he only cares about himself. He cheats on her, abuses her and manages to keep her hooked by his romancing of her. Meanwhile when she is home is working on her writing and wondering how to break from his clutches.

The writing kept me reading but I kept wanting to tell her to wake up and realize that he is no good. But the book did show how it is possible that abused women stay in hurtful relationships and how manipulative the abuser can be.

I would love to read more of Samatha Corso's books in the future. ( )

--Full, non-spoiler review courtesy at Book & Movie Dimension a Blog--

Here this is a book that showcases the sweetness of life but is no stranger to the disappointments in life. Its a blunt novel of those held aspirations in life that easily cannbe lost when we let ourselves forget ourselves. An eye-opening novel with some beauty. Have to recommend so much outright. Don't believe would disappoint a reader who picks it up.

Samantha Bonti is a young woman living in Brooklyn during 1970's when its a time that lots of boys in her neightborhood a involved in the mob. Samantha has always believed was much she is much too smart to fall in with the crowd of her neighborhood involved with crime and violence until she unexpectedly does. Her bestfriend , Janice Caputo, introduces her to Tony Kroon a gorgeous blond Adonis that Samantha can hardly tear herself away from. He not only has striking fair Dutch features but happens to be a mix of Italian descent. In Bensonhurst, Brooklyn this characteristic can set you apart from the rest of everyone who happens to be of Italian descent. Samantha feels her and Tony couldn't be anymore similar. What she doesn't realize is that he doesn't have the same dreams as her that consist of moving from their neighborhood to a less violent one. He dreams of being the top mobster on the rise while Samantha wishes to leave Brooklyn for the pleasant world of Manhattan, New York City. It would be a real battle of wills for them.

With Brooklyn Story there is an obvious sense, Suzanne Corso, relishes writing. With its native Brooklyn slang voice your getting a genuine story here. There is true emotion in the lines of Brooklyn Story. Now let me get into the characters a little and the overall story. Brooklyn Story as it turns out would be a tragic sort of love story of first love where abuse is terribly present and dreams are re-evaluated and finally hard won. At times even when things seem so glaring to us , the reader, but no to Samantha, we truly see how young love is blind and often so naive. Samantha in Brooklyn Story in the end is a strong individual for pulling through from the ashes of the frequent indifferent world which makes this a powerful novel.

So glad Suzanne got this book out there. She has done a genius feat. And as of now a fan of her work!
Overall: Amazing read!
Genre: Realistic Fiction, Romance ( )

It’s 1978 and fifteen year old Samantha Bonti is living in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, in a shabby apartment with her ailing mother and grandmother. Though her grandmother is loving and kind to Samantha, her mother, a prisoner of addiction and ill health, is constantly berating and maligning her daughter to no obvious effect. When Samantha’s older friend Janice introduces the young girl to twenty year old Tony Kroon, a local who is part of the “Brooklyn Boys” crew, Sam’s life is changed forever. Soon she’s living the high life of expensive gifts, hot cars and exclusive clubs, but it all comes with a hefty price tag. Before she even realizes what’s happened, things begin to take a sinister turn. Though her relationship with Tony goes from smooth to rocky in the blink of an eye, Sam still has dreams of becoming a writer and moving across the bridge to Manhattan, dreams that may perish if she continues to be Tony’s girl. As Sam grows into a young woman, she must navigate through the rough waters of Tony’s possessiveness, violence and disregard. Though her mother and grandmother constantly tell her Tony is trouble, it’s only when Sam begins to see him through newly clear eyes that she discovers a man unlike any she has ever known, and must decide whether to remain the girlfriend of a small time mobster or to attempt to realize her dreams of becoming famous across the water. In this realistically gritty portrayal of a young girl caught up in a dangerous relationship, Suzanne Corso brings 1970s Brooklyn into fast and furious relief, and shares Samantha Bonti’s heartbreak and joy as she attempts to make a better life for herself.

This is going to be a tough book to review, because although it’s not a memoir, it’s based upon the real life circumstances of the author’s past. This causes a problem for me because I wasn’t a huge fan of the book, but by making critical comments on it, it feels like I’m judging the life of a person and not just the story between the pages. The book’s curious melding of fact and fiction present me with a unique problem in giving it a fair review, but I’ll do my best to explain how I felt without trying to alienate or offend the author whose life story this book reflects.

Sam is a bright girl with dreams, but though she dreams of a better life, she’s soon invested in a pedestrian and controlling relationship with a wannabe gangster who treats her like a piece of property. There were times when she did mentally rebel over the way Tony treated her, but she never seemed to let those thoughts move into action. I also found it a little off-putting that Sam was only fifteen years old when when she began to date a twenty year old man. I know that this sort of thing happens, but having a daughter this age, it really stuck an unpleasant chord and sort of nauseated me. I also was also frustrated by the repetitive way that Sam reacted like a deer in the headlights every time her so-called great catch acted abusive. Thinking back, it’s clear to see that Sam was in way over her head, but with only the other girls in her neighborhood (who were all in the same situation) to look to for advice, Sam never really had a chance.

There was a lot of talk about how smart Sam was in regards to her writing, but I guess it was all book smarts and not street smarts. She continually acted rather foolishly for most of the story, caught up in the wash of a baby mobster's bad behavior. Though every adult in her life tells her that she should get away from Tony, Sam continued to be naive and trusting of a man who was just no good for her. A lot of the time she came off as a bit backward and seemed to have some underlying self-esteem issues that halted her progress when it came to leaving Tony. I also didn’t like that she constantly made excuses for his behavior, even when no excuse could have sufficed, and it was bothersome that she kept changing her behavior and attitude to model the type of behavior that Tony demands. As Sam gets more and more invested in Tony and his lifestyle, she gets further and further away from the life she longs to lead one day, but it isn’t until things begin to get out of control that she even thinks that being with Tony might be a problem.

Another thing that bothered me was the fact that although Sam was purportedly only fifteen, she thought, spoke, and acted like a much older teenager. The story was littered with clichés and uninspired dialogue which took a lot of the originality out of it as well. As Sam mistakes dominance for affection over and over again, she repeatedly deludes herself about the strong connection that she shares with Tony, which was upsetting to me. She also continues to support all of his ill-intentioned decisions, and even as I turned the last few pages, I saw that Sam wasn’t able to fully break away from Tony as I had thought she would once she realized what kind of person he really was. It angered me that she kept going back to him, even when he did things that were tremendously unfeeling and selfish. The only bright spot was the relationship Sam had with her grandmother and her adherence to and love for her writing. As Sam eventually discovers, she must rely on herself to pull out of the tailspin she’s in and move on to a better life.

I have to be honest and say that this book frustrated me. In certain regards, I think it glamorized abusive relationships, and the main character spent a lot of time deluding herself and making things like this seem acceptable. If read by the wrong audience, it might send the wrong message, and though I’m loathe to criticize the author’s life, I didn’t find the book to be as memorable or original as I had hoped it would be. There are lessons to be learned, but they come very late, and as such their impact is severely diminished. ( )

Well, how do I start off this review? It's not a bad book. Let's start with that. It's different. This is a book about a time of poverty, and of longing for an escape to a better life. A book about mobs and gangsters. Definitely not the style of book that I would normally pick. But, as always, I feel every book deserves a chance, and then an opinion formed.

This book is wonderfully researched. The depth of the story lies in the way the author created a real to life feel to the story. A time period during which a mobster has a woman and he controls her, even abuses her. VERY emotional on that end. The characters are as deep and complex as the plot, created a gripping novel.

So, in conclusion, while not a terrible book, it is still not my favorite. There were some things about the book, like it's not my style of plot and the abusive situations weren't my favorite, but over all, it is one that I would suggest you try. It's deserving of 4 stars for the complexity and the depth the author uses. I will be looking for other books by this author in the future to see what other talent she holds. ( )