Monday, June 23, 2008

Mob Princess: For Money and Love


Mob Princess: For Money and Love by Todd Strasser

I have to start out by saying that it took me less than a day to read this awesome book!! I first heard of the Mob Princess series about a month and half ago when I attended a conference where Todd Strasser was speaking. Strasser is known for his wonderful serious young adult fiction such as, Give a Boy a Gun. However, he has actually written over 120 books including some that might be known as guilty pleasure reads. When speaking about his books, Strasser made the comment that after he writes a serious book he likes to write a fun one, the Mob Princess is considered one of his "fun books."

I must say that I was a little skeptical about reading a book about a teenage girl written by a middle-aged man. However, I was pleasantly surprised by how well Strasser wrote the character of Kate. She seems more than girl; she is a human being.

Kate, is the sixteen-year-old daughter of Sonny Blessing (head of the Blessing Organization), and as the title implies her father's business is a mafia-type organization. On the day that Kate breaks-up with her boyfriend, everything in her world falls apart. A rival organization is trying to take over her dad's territory, her mom is leaving her dad, her dad is cheating yet again on her mom, and her thirteen-year-old brother is as clueless as always.

With Kate's father having to deal with her mother and his girlfriend, Kate is left to help run the family business. This leads to her enlisting the help of her extremely loose best friend, Randi, in an armored car robbery and meeting with the son of the rival family's boss.

Kate is trying to be a normal teenager, but is that even possible in her family, especially when she has gone and complicated things further by falling for Nick Blatteria, her father's enemy's son? This is a trilogy, so Kate has at least three books to fix everything. I recommend this book to lovers of chick mafia books or just chick-lit in general.

Warning: Contains alcohol usage and sexual content.

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