This Family of Mine: What It Was Like Growing Up Gotti

by Victoria Gotti

Here at last is the explosive memoir that captures the Gottis as they are—unvarnished, raw, and real. And who better to tell this no-holds-barred story than their most famous daughter? Victoria Gotti never intended to reveal the inside story of the Gotti household—the day-to-day life of a family that makes the fictional Sopranos look positively functional—but with the pressing need to finally set the record straight came the realization that only she can do so, once and for all. Daughter to the late John Gotti, sister to John A. “Junior” Gotti and three other siblings, single mother to three sons with whom she shared reality television stardom on Growing Up Gotti , an outspoken columnist and bestselling author, Victoria Gotti delivers a candid, colorful, and brutally honest family portrait that reads like a confidential file, filled with deeply personal reflections and many never-before-published photographs.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Memoir, Autobiography, True Crime, Crime, Celebrity

400 pages, Hardcover

First published September 29, 2009

Reviews

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

True life accounts always seem to be good reads to me (provided the author is writing an account of something that's actually interesting). Who doesn't like hearing about the mafia?
This book would have gotten 4 stars from me but didn't for two reasons:
1) There were some gramatical errors.
2) There is no spot in the book where you can go to see the family tree, which is confusing. The Gotti family is quite large and (both John Gotti Sr and Victoria's families are discussed, as are members of the mob), as is common in many Italian families, many of the family members have the same name. Victoria (author) shares the same name as her mother. John Gotti (mob boss) names a son John, and Victoria (author) names a son John. Victoria (author) names another of her sons Carmine (also the name of her now ex husband). Then there are mob members, many of whom have nicknames. Sometimes Gotti refers to them by nickname, sometimes by first name, and sometimes by last name. A chart would have been nice.
3) Gotti does not follow a chronological timeline in recounting her life. This is my biggest pet peeve with the book. She bounces around in the 1980's like a mad woman, and it made it a bit hard to keep track of things (especially when trying to figure out her pregnancies).
Overall, this was a unique glimpse into the life of John Gotti and his family and Victoria Gotti is brutally honest in regards to her feelings about "the life," her own life, and those around her.

[Leo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've never heard of either the show or the family itself but it sounded intriguing enough to pick up. It's a very interesting look of a family and am a little interested in learning more about them. Overall a good non fiction

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

TUTTO BENE.

Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about. ‘This Family of Mine: What It Was Like Growing Up Gotti’ by Victoria Gotti is my kind of memoir: filled with nostalgia for the streets of the metropolitan New York neighborhoods of my youth. These are my kind of people. Of course, I’d say that even if it wasn’t true, because I don’t wanna get whacked.

“The wedding gifts totaled several hundred thousand in cash.” [Said of John Gotti, Jr.’s wedding gifts.:] (Pg. 209, digital edition from Barnes and Noble) And to think, it was only a couple of decades earlier that the Gotti family was buying groceries using “…a book of food stamps.” (Pg. 96, same digital edition)

Ya gotta love the Italians. No. Really. If you’re from any of the ‘neighborhoods’, and you like your kneecaps: ya gotta love the Italians. So what’s not to love, already?

And what’s not to love about Victoria Gotti’s very entertaining rendering of her family’s story. This is a real story, about real people, in a real time and a real place. And Mr. & Mrs. Gotti’s little girl, Victoria, writes it real well. Bravisima!

Recommendation: Read it. You’ll like it. Ya betta like it.

Buona lettura.

[Nook eBook #11:] (digital edition from Barnes and Noble. 310 pages.)

[Christina · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is flawlessly written, starting with the history of Victoria's grandparents and parents. To my surprise, the content is so fascinating that I cannot put the book the down.

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book twice. Victoria gave an amazing account of her family and her father. She wrote about each parents starting from their horrible childhoods, to the day they met, married and started having kids. This book will make you smile, it will make you tear up and it will also make you angry. I had to chuckle when I got the visual of John Gotti committing what he called the "Biggest Heist of his life". I will not spoil you would have to read it.

It is funny because the Mafia is known as a family that thrives in loyalty and respect. However it is so hard to believe that when members of this family are stabbing each other in the back and handing this member over to the feds. I saw no loyalty within the Gambino family. However I see a strong loyalty, respect and love within the Gotti family. They knew how important to one another they were. This is an account on the Gotti Family. While she touches on much of the Gambino family. You will see which family has the most strength and Loyalty. It was not John's created street family. It was the blood family he created with his wife. Excellent read.

[James Hickel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book about life with mobster John Gotti's family is like John Gotti himself: Intriguing, and yet revolting.

Intriguing, because Victoria Gotti is a very skillful writer. She makes it easy to want to turn the pages and continue following the story. In fact, I'm a little tempted to try one of her novels sometime. And she doesn't make any pretenses about her father being a plumbing contractor, or whatever his cover story was. She openly acknowledges that both her father and brother were in "the life." And she clearly loves her father and brother, and writes about them in the best possible light. Who can blame a daughter/sister for that?

However, it is also revolting, because of Victoria's skewed view of reality. She demonstrates the unique paranoia and hatred that mob types and other criminals tend to have of the police, in a way that is often funny. For example, she expresses outrage that the police engaged in "breaking and entering" when they planted bugs in the Gotti house -- as if she was expecting them to politely ring the doorbell and ask for permission to come in and install hidden microphones. She also believes that the notorious Leona Helmsley's legal problems stemmed from the fact that she was a friend of the Gotti family. And at several points in the book, she rails at the FBI for not allowing her father and brother to telephone in advance and arrange a convenient time and place to be arrested.

And she steps over the line, well into sickening, in her discussion of the tragic death of her 12-year-old brother Frankie. A nine-to-five working stiff named John Favara was driving home when he accidentally ran over and killed Frankie, who was driving a motor bike in the street. By all accounts, the police and their investigators found that Favara was sober when he was driving, and did nothing wrong. But Favara was terrified that he had run over a Gotti child, and was about to leave town, when he was kidnapped in the street and presumably killed. Most reasonable speculation is that someone in the Gotti crew killed Favara out of revenge, although it is unclear whether this killing had John Gotti's approval. In fairness, even Sammy "The Bull" Gravano, Gotti's turncoat right-hand man who had every incentive to blame Gotti for everything, believed that this was a renegade killing within Gotti's crew that Gotti himself didn't know about in advance. Victoria seems to support this viewpoint.

However...without offering any supporting evidence, and in direct contradiction to everything I've read ever about this incident, Victoria asserts that Favara (a) was drunk while driving, (b) continued driving with Frankie's body trapped under the car, and (c) had to be stopped by a mob of outraged bystanders. So as far as Victoria is apparently concerned, Favara deserved the baseball-bat beating her mother gave him and his car, and as for his death...well, good riddance. I have to say, it really shocks me that Victoria would pile unsubstantiated abuse on someone who was likely killed because of her family's mob ties and someone's perverted sense of vigilante justice.

So I would say this is a book worth reading. It opens a tiny, cautious window on what life is like inside the family of a mob leader. But perhaps more importantly, it also shows how being raised in a criminal cocoon can warp even an intelligent, talented and creative mind like Victoria Gotti's.

[Tanya T · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was excited to read this book but soon found myself disappointed with it. Victoria Gotti is the daughter of the high profile mafia crime boss John Gotti. While i found it interesting to read about John's childhood and his early struggles to support his young family as the story reads on it turns into Victoria's drama with her numerous health issues. I found them a bit dramatically described at times.She is constantly making excuses for her father and later her brother John Jr. as to why they were both sent to prison. It's always somebody else that set them up,the Feds were jealous of them, blah, blah, blah.....really? Does she expect us all to believe her father was a choir boy and did nothing wrong,ever? Everything John Sr/ or Jr were ever charged with was all a frame job from other people in "the life" or rival mob members. Bottom line is never trust anyone in this line of work! Waste of time for me.

[Magdalin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great read. Victoria Gotti's writing kept me interested from the beginning. It was the over the top story that I was expecting.

I have also read Mob Daughter by Karen Gravano and it was interesting to read the differing sides of the story.

It is rather obvious that VG is a professional compared to the way KG's book reads.

[Cheri Wells · Rating 3 out of 5]

interesting perspective

[S. Yuri Reese · Rating 5 out of 5]

Victoria, always a strong woman just as my aunts always said her to be! Beautiful and a great writer too!

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not sure where to begin with my review , I was kind of disappointed in this book , I'm actually really surprised there are so many 4 and 5 star reviews
Firstly,
this book read like a high school student writing an essay about her family.

There's just something missing in it..... finesse or levity or something I'm not sure what it is actually...it's just written- essay ish

Secondly,
she clearly idolizes her father, but to the point of being delusional either on purpose or she really has no idea what line of work he was in.

she always explains things in the book as if her father had no involvement in any violent or intimidating acts but he merely went and talked to people about something and they agreed because her dad was good at explaining and convincing people. for example he didn't like how the "kingpin" in prison was handling things so her dad went and talked to him and they guy listened and changed his ways. just things like that throughout the book started to drive me nuts. really? he was one of the biggest mafia leaders of all time and all he did was go talk and explain his side of things and people were like oh yah that makes sense sure!
puhlease!

Thirdly,
a lot of this book seemed made up, her thoughts of certain precise moments in time when she was little, all of the health problems she has, how she went on her honeymoon and when she returned she was throwing up and found out she was pregnant- really? Like a week later the doctor confirmed that. Uh huh.
and things she referenced were not correct- telling the readers her mothers concern for her -how if she has the child her health problems could be serious such as when julia Roberts in steel magnolias died right after childbirth , umm did you even see
that movie? she actually dies a year after child birth and it wasn't from the childbirth it was because her body was rejecting the kidney transplant she had.
and the super high confidence sometimes came across as arrogant, like a pretty girl saying she's so ugly meanwhile knowing she's a bombshell, or when skinny model types say oh I'm fat just to get people to say oh no you're skinny and oh so beautiful! it sometimes gets transparent and off putting.

there are just so so many weird, off, odd things in this book, and delusions and referenced errors, and things you have to roll you're eyes at, and you think " yah right. "

I mean don't get me wrong it was entertaining. it was not terrible. but there were just a lot of things in it that didn't sit right and made you question the credibility of the stories, but again, it's just those little things and it's just my opinion.

[Elaine Meszaros · Rating 3 out of 5]

Victoria Gotti, daughter of mafia boss John Gotti, writes a surprisingly articulate and interesting tell-all about her life in relation to the mafia. She chronicles her father's early life and his various successes and failures. Some of Gotti's claims of innocence for her father and brother should be taken with a grain (block) of salt. On the whole, however, Gotti gives a clear and honest look at what a trying and hard life it can be having family who are "made men." She tells of endless prison visits, her failing health, stress, desires for children, her writing career and the benefits and problems associated with a last name like Gotti. A tough-as-nails lady - admirable and interesting.

[jennifer burkhammer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read

This is a very well written book. And it's nice to hear to real story of the infamous Got to clan

[Maria Wroblewski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unlike many 21 century published books, this one has very few grammatical errors. On the other hand, there are a lot of inconsistencies.

Ms. Gotti is a strong woman with a love for family that one rarely sees today. This love, however, makes her a dubious teller of truths. Many of her anecdotes only tell half truths; that is, they leave out important details that would give the reader a more enlightened view. As an example, her husband had been made into the life by her father. How is it he did not let her know and acted surprised when she told her father that she knew?

She makes her immediate family seem victims; yet, she does not acknowledge the many poor who raise themselves up without resorting to the rackets. Her belief that politicians live similar lives and are as corrupt, rings true, especially from what we have learned about them since the turn of the century.

All in all, the book was a well written page turner. The author is very talented. The love and blind eye she has for her father and family members is, on one level, heat warming, but let us hope that no one truly believes this is the unvarnished truth. Her father may have been generous, but he was no Robin Hood. Robin lived in the forest, and, though born rich, lived his life modestly. The way the Gottis and their ilk throw money around is proof it is all about the spending, the show, the excess, and they are no more than scoundrels. Finally, nowadays, Kim and Paris are considered role models, then , I suppose, Ms. Gotti can call herself a socialite, her dad a hero and the life "honorable."

What has happened to our culture?

[J S · Rating 4 out of 5]

Victoria Gotti is a good writer & I enjoyed reading about her life as the daughter of one Americas most infamous monsters. The book starts out with a history of her parent, their childhoods & how they met. The backstory helps set the stage & gives insight in to what made her parents the way they were. She talks about her own upbringing as the daughter of a mob boss. While she is very open, it is kind if obvious that even after all these years she is still in denial about things. And she is clearly biased when it comes to her father, brother John Jr and her own sons. She does her best to paint John Gotti as a good man, someone who did no wrong. He ordered killings and was a basically a neighborhood bully but boy does Victoria want you to think otherwise! Her brother John Jr followed in their fathers footsteps & she makes the case that he never wanted to be in “the life”. She does talk about her health problems A LOT, she’s been through a lot but all that health stuff wasn’t always relevant to the story she was telling. All in all it is a good read although Victoria is clearly very biased.

[Margaret · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first section was interesting but as the book progressed, I found that the author delved further into denial. According to general information, her father, John Gotti was charged with 13 counts, including murder, conspiracy to commit murder, loansharking, illegal gambling, obstruction of justice, bribery, and tax evasion. For some odd reason she mentioned that her father was involved with gambling and loansharking without detailing his other crimes. "The life" was often mentioned without true descriptions of what that entailed. Clubs, food, drink and get togethers seemed to convey a romanticized depiction that I couldn't quite believe. About 75% into the book I decided to do my own research on John Gotti. I hope to read a more authentic book than what John Gotti's daughter wrote. Surely the FBI wasn't a bunch of liars and crooks. 2.5 stars

[Leigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written and interesting. I love biographies and with this, we get (an albeit it biased) look at a whole family. Victoria does share a lot of detail but for obvious reasons, probably leaves more out. At times, I wasn't sure if she was trying to convince us, or herself, that her family were good people who were wronged by law enforcement. Of course she loves her family and also has to protect herself with her words but I found it a real stretch to believe that this intelligent and also street smart woman , who has been through so much; didn't know her own husband was 'in the life'. She is, however, very likeable and is a good writer. The book is engaging and articulate and kept me interested.

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book. Gotti has a great writing style. I watched the show back in the day and I have only a cursory knowledge of John Gotti. I thought the show was fun and humorous at times--that's why I read this book. One can see the love and admiration Victoria has for her father and also what a giant among men he was.

[Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Victors Gotti is certainly not the person I thought her to be which is great. This books contains not only her childhood and her marriage to carmine and her health troubles but it also covers her fathers childhood and his death. Both she and her father had lived a very interesting and dramatic life it seems. I loved this book

[Krys Rayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this for tesearch, since I'm planning on writing a spin off series from my romantic suspense. I really enjoyed this book. Victoria Gotti did not mince words and she did not romanticize "the life". I felt like I was right there as a participant in the stories. I really, really enjoyed this book and applaud Ms. Gotti for her courage to publish it.

[Marcia Ann McConnell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well written and intensely interesting. I highly recommend it because it's such a wonderfully good read

Takes you from the family's highs to their lowest of lows. In some ways it is heart warming, in others it's heartwrenching.

[Darla Ebert · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story is a combination of sadness, deep grief, sorrow and a bit of happiness. The life of Gotti was obviously a complicated man as applies to his choice of careers but he was a family man and this is the part that his daughter mainly highlights.

[Brittany Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting.

This book took me a little longer than most to read. However, this book was very informative & interesting. I’d recommend this book.

[Africa Kirk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book!

[Nellie J. Whitmore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book

Well written book so good you won't want too but it down until you have finished it. Highly recommended this book to everyone it a must read book

[Cindy dye · Rating 5 out of 5]

Was a good book

[Elizabeth Burnett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a good book, there were some spelling errors , the audiobook doesn’t read the whole book just FYI if anyone wanted to do the audio. I did both read and listened.

[Stephani Ortiz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this twice! Loved it!

[Orpha Rauff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent!