The Godfather

Executive Summary: This might be one of those rare times where the movie is better than the book. As long as the movie is, the book is longer, and seems to have a tendency to go off on seemingly irrelevant tangents. I would say if you enjoyed the movie, you'd enjoy the book, but I find little reason to do so.

Audio Book: Joe Montegna does a good job reading this, doing voices for some of the characters, including a passable impersonation of Brando's Vito Corleone.

Full Review
I did the audiobook, so it's a bit hard for me to talk about the prose of the author, but while the overall story is quite excellent, I found the writing a bit lacking.

Puzo has a tendency to ramble on in great detail about things that have little to no impact on the plot. He goes into depth with minor characters in what I assume is an attempt to give them a richer back-story, only to slow down the main plots.

You do get some more insight into the mindset of the characters, which is fairly common when comparing a book to a movie, since it offers the ability for internal monologue much better. But the acting/screenplay for the movie is so well done, I don't think this makes it worth the extra time of reading the book.

Another nice addition to the book that was cut from the first movie (but included in the second) was Vito's background from Italy to his rise to Don. That makes it easier to understand some of his motivations and decisions that could otherwise seem confusing.

Overall, I found it to be a good distraction from the long car trips (6-7 hours at a time) I took this past weekend, but this isn't a book I think I would have enjoyed sitting down to read as much. I would have likely stopped reading and opted to watch the movie again instead.

This is a case where the movie was better than the novel. The writing is very nice, but it goes on forever on tangents and skirts the most thrilling and/or violent scenes. In the end, it reads more like an essay about the mafia, or a political figure than a novel. There are still great parts and Don Corleone is much more magnificent than his counterpart in the movie, but it still fell flat for me.

perfect beach material!

Vito was sent to America after his father was murdered by the Mafia in Sicily. He took the name of his home village and called himself Corleone. Injustices of life made him a criminal. Caring about the injustices on other people made him the Godfather, head of the most powerful Mafia family in the whole USA. His eldest son Sonny is too passionate and gets killed in a family war, his son Freddy becomes a ladies man, and only Michael, the youngest son, who initially wanted to escape the family business, is going to step into the footsteps of his father and become the new Godfather.

I'd never watched the movie so everything in this book was new to me. It's fast paced, rich, and full of character. There's lots of twists that keep you hooked and reading more. The start is top notch and was on its way to a 5-star – since it was amazing. However, it does get bogged down a little in the middle, and gets a decent payoff at the end. Whilst unfortunately the middle and end don't quite capture what it managed to do at the start, it was still a very fun read and one you could read for hours at a time.

Unlike some books where it takes a while to get into, this book hits the ground running. I was hooked with the first two pages which is uncommon for me.

It's not an absolute “must-read, you're life is terrible if you don't”, but I recommend it someone who is interested in this kind of stuff.

I must note that I did learn things from this book about interacting and dealing with people. It painted a new way of thinking for me when it comes to being “respectful” and doing people favours. There's some wisdom in here from the Don himself, namely, his opinions on anger, remaining reasonable, and being respectful. It was an interesting dive into another time and culture. That will be my main takeaway from this book in years to come.