Son of the Mob

The son of the head of a mob family falls in love with the daughter of an FBI agent - that's all it took for me to know I had to read this book. Happily, it turned out to be just as enjoyable as I had hoped.

I really liked Vince's “voice.” The book is written in the first person, from his perspective. He's a nice guy who tries to live as much like an ordinary, law-abiding citizen as possible, but his family's business has a habit of bleeding into his life. I loved reading about him trying to keep everything together while also trying to keep to his own ideas of right and wrong. Vince wasn't always the brightest of characters (I clued in to some of what was going on with his web design project well before he did), but he was very show more likable. I wanted things to turn out well for him, even when it wasn't always easy to figure out what “well” might mean for a kid who wants to obey the law but has a family that breaks it at every opportunity.

I had wondered how the mob aspects would be handled. In a lot of things I've read and seen in which the mobsters were not supposed to be 100% the bad guys, the mob aspects were often downplayed. The beginning of Son of the Mob made it seem like that's how it would be in that book, too. While on a date, Vince opens the trunk of his car to discover that his brother put someone in there. I at first thought he might be dead, but, no, he was just unconscious. When he woke up, he was more upset about the kind of car he'd been locked up in than that he'd been beaten.

While I'm still not sure how dirty Vince's immediate family members ever got their hands, later on it's made clear that the “uncles,” at least, don't all just bruise a guy and then leave him be. There's nothing “on page” - the dark stuff is still, in my opinion, handled lightly - but the mobsters are definitely not all handled in a “rough around the edges but still nice” sort of way.

The focus is on Vince, who is only exposed to a very small amount of the stuff his family is involved in. For the most part, Vince is concerned with Kendra, his relationship with his best friend Alex, and his efforts to keep others out of trouble with his family. I thought his relationship with Kendra was cute and fun (they got to know each other better via a mutual need for head lice treatments, and Vince becomes a fan of the many karaoke tapes Kendra records), but I found myself wishing Kendra had known as much as Vince about what was going on. She spent most of the book clueless, confused and hurt by Vince's insistence that they not meet each other's families. I'm tempted to read the sequel, Son of the Mob: Hollywood Hustle, just to see how things go between the two of them once everyone knows what's going on.

All in all, this was a fun, light read.

(Original review, with read-alikes and watch-alikes, posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less

"Gritty" is not a word you associate with Gordon Korman, so I wondered how he'd pull off a story about a mob family. He manages by keeping most of the violence "offstage" and by telling the story from the point of view of Vince, who wants nothing to do with the mafia.

I enjoyed the allusions to Romeo & Juliet (and even choked up at the "banishment" scene), but this story is really more about the relationship between a father and a son. Funny, engaging and touching.

It doesn't take Vince Luca long in his life to find out that his dad is in the "vending machine business" or that the vending machine business has nothing to do with vending machines either. For one, he knows that his dad is an only child, but there always seem to be a few sinister-seeming Uncles around the house. That, and when his dad says a sarcastic good night to empty rooms, it's not hard to tell that the Luca house is bugged by the FBI. Yes, Vince Luca's dad is a mob kingpin, and it's causing Vince all sorts of problems, especially in his love life, like that time he took a girl to the beach, opened the trunk to get a blanket out, only to find one of his dad's roughed up debtors passed out in the trunk. Things are going to get show more worse, though, because Vince is falling for the daughter of the very same FBI agent that is trying to put his dad away for good.

Son of the Mob is a great blend of the hilarious and the serious. Vince is a sympathetic and funny narrator caught between his dad's line of work, which always seems to be getting him in trouble and the comfortable life he leads because of it. It's hard to take a moral stand against the mob when his dad's income from it is what's putting food on the table. The story is littered with oddly named Uncles and their expected and unexpected exploits. The back story of Vince's dawning realization that his dad's line of work is a bit different than all the other kids' dads, not to mention the scrapes he's always getting into because of it, are all laugh out loud funny.

In a strange sort of way, Son of the Mob is a convincing coming of age story. Vince has always had the mob in his life, but he's never worked out where he fits into his family's story. He knows that a criminal life isn't one he wants to lead, but he is still wrestling with how to reconcile that distaste for his dad's life with a son's inherent loyalty to a dad who, despite his illegal career, has taken care of him and cared about him all of his life. Vince's relationship with Kendra, the FBI agent's daughter, is less of a convincing love story than it is a plot device that throws all Vince's quandaries into sharp relief and forces him to face up to what his dad is doing and what he, Vince, is going to do about it.

Ultimately, Son of the Mob is a funny story with heart and a serious coming of age component that almost takes you by surprise. show less

A very funny and engaging book -- kind of like The Sopranos lite. I'd never really thought upon the problems one would have in this kind of family, but Gordon Korman was both insightful and funny. The only fault I find is I could figure out many of the surprises many chapters ahead of time -- I actually mumbled "you %$#!ing moron" as I read, addressing the protagonist for being so clueless.

Although as hilarious as any of Korman's books, this book is more appropriate for older readers. Of course, I started reading the author's books when I was 7, so "older" is a relative term. That's probably why these memorable characters reminded me of a mafia-based dinner theater I wrote, although I wish I'd thought of "Uncle Pampers" first. The writing style is believable, as if the book were a memoir from your average ambivalent son of a notorious mobster. Main character Vince Luca is ignored at school by everyone but his new girlfriend and his newly jealous best friend Alex. Poor Alex spends most of the book third wheeling with Vince and Kendra or watching Star Trek reruns in his basement. Vince's attempts to keep the family show more "business" a secret from Kendra only tangles him further in a web of ridiculousness. Ciao. show less

Gordon Korman is the author of my favorite blisteringly-funny childhood book*, so I had pretty high expectations going into Son of the Mob, and he didn't disappoint.

Trying (and mostly failing) to extricate oneself from the family 'vending machine' business is not an inherently humorous subject (see: The Godfather). But Korman succeeds with his deft characterization, especially in Vince, whose self-aware observations ground the madcap intensity rather than letting it devolve into a mere spoof.

Such incidents such as a)getting caught by the police for the stolen car his parents gifted him for his 16th birthday, b)winning at football 'cause somebody had a little word with the opposing team, and c)finding his dream girl is the daughter of show more the FBI agent who's had his house bugged for as long as he can remember, are just flat out enjoyable. But Vince's struggle gains some real poignancy as he navigates through a smarty-designed plot which touches upon some impressive complexities (the guilt and ties of family and blood money and friendship in the mob and the FBI).

The ending does seem a little incomplete; the novel clearly designed towards the sequel. But hey, sweet and proactive characters** that you can root for, and I laughed out loud a few times.

*the woefully out-of-print I Want to Go Home!
**Korman's teens, while generally refreshingly human-like, sometimes veer into the quaint with the slang and experience in technology, heh. show less

Vince DeLuca's dad is in the "Vending Machine Business" and a mere mention of his name is enough to strike fear into the heart of the most hardened gangster. Vince has learned to live with the family business, and all that it entails, such as only having conversations in the basement, getting busted when his birthday Porche turns out to be hot, and a litany of uncles with names like "Pampers". However, he's determined not to be a part of it. Things get complicated fast when Vince starts dating, and then falls for Kendra, a bright, upbeat karaoke fanatic, who also happens to be the daughter of the FBI agent leading the investigation against the DeLuca family.

Fast paced, funny and original, this book reads like the Sopranos meets Home show more Improvement. The romance aspect is filtered through a "boy lens" -- so no goopiness. The subplots with Vince's brother and his website could have been taken away, but all in all, a good strong book. show less