Rating: 
Summary: What a slice of life!
Review: As a local boy, I know the places and the types of people of which Lynda speaks. My mother-in-law's house was in walking distance to both Lynda and Louie's house as well as Sammy Gravano's. I drive past Paul Castellano's "White House" all the time. I smirked and giggled, so much of this rings so true. It's the story of Lynda, an outsider on the inside (or is it an insider on the outside?), "The Life" and the fear that is part in parcel of being married to Louie Milito - a thief, loanshark and murderer. She recounts her childhood in Brooklyn, dropping out of high school, meeting Louie, her tumultuous marriage, her friends in and out of "The Life" and the bittersweet day that Louie failed to make it home. Lynda provides stunning insights into the dynamics of trying to live a normal family life as her husband rises in the ranks of the crime family. Her struggles to escape the insular world that Louie draws her into, the despair, the fleeting joys, as well as the violent end of many of their acquaintances, make for a very compelling story. As I read Mafia Wife, I wondered who would write the screen play and who would be cast as Lynda and Louie. It would make a great double feature with Goodfellas.
Rating: 
Summary: PLEASE!
Review: I don't know what book the Editorial Review read, but they missed a few important points. There was more self-pity in the first 35 pages than in most self-help books on the market. After the fall of the old Mafia families every goodfellow, associate, wannabe, relative or FBI agent that could, started writing books. Most have some information of value as does this. My problem is Lynda Milito still doesn't get it. She is the absolute personification of criminal thinking errors and contradiction. A great deal of time is spent venting at Sammy Gravano as the lowest of the low, which will get no argument from me. She forgets there are widows, children and loved ones who might say the same about her lowlife husband. (Who by the way, she keeps insisting was really a sensitive, caring guy, unless you crossed him!)In any event, if you are truly interested in the Mafia cult, battered women, criminal thinking errors and want to do a quick Hare Scale on Psychopaths this is the book for you. Read between the lines, she's not sorry for anything but her own inconveniences.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I found the book to be very interesting and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a true woman's perspective on the Mafia. I agreed with the book and the way it was written and found it to be very comprehensive and thought provoking.
In my point of view I believe you get a true "connected" woman's view, but at the same time her (the author's) personal feelings about certain members of the Mafia.
The only downside to the book that I noticed was that as mentioned in the beginning of the book that author states that most of the names used were changed to protect those involved. I understand that completely, but it seems whenever a new character is introduced you find yourself reminded of the name changes constantly. Personally, I found this to be a bit nerve racking.
Overall I would suggest reading this book, it does give a well painted portrait of the people involved and is a very personal insider point of view. It was also a fairly easy book to read and contains very simple dialogue/text as if the author is in the same room talking to you. Over the few days it took me to read it I found myself having a hard time putting it down so I have rated it 5 stars.
Ciao and enjoy.......
Rating: 
Summary: Chilling
Review: I have read many books written about the Mafia. This book tells the wife's side of being married to a Mafia Captain of the Gambino family. No wonder Lynda has mental problems described in the book. She slept with a murderer for 22 years and had children by him. She does not mince words nor does she say she did not know what was going on. She knew, but by the time she was sure it was too late to get a divorce. I don't want to say I enjoyed this book because how can you enjoy someone else's misery. However, I couldn't put the book down and have immense impathy for Lynda and her two children. I hope she finds happiness and peace one day.
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't put it down!
Review: I met Lynda at a book signing and bought her book. I stayed up the whole night reading about her life and couldn't put it down. This true story reads like a movie. My only criticism is that it isn't well written. I wish Lynda had a better editor, but maybe they wanted this to sound like she wrote it herself...which she did!
Rating:
Summary: Tired of Sleazy People Cashing In
Review: Lynda Milito would like to have you believe that she is a tragic figure that has suffered because her loving husband was murdered. She would like to have you believe that she is the victim and that the evil monsters of organized crime are to blame. I'm getting kind of tired of these lurid tales of scummy people writing about organized crime. Ms. Milito's husband was a cold-blooded murderer who drew his wife and his entire family into a life of theft, robbery and general lawlessness. Ms. Milito was fully aware of what was happening and lived an extravegant lifestyle while her husband was alive. Finally, it did catch up to her and she snivels about how the other mobsters hurt her. What did she expect? The people whom I would recommend the book to would be to teenage girls who are thinking of dropping out of school. Ms. Milito's life is a great example of what happens to you when you don't take education seriously.
Rating:
Summary: Not great but something to read to pass time.
Review: Ok. I read lots of books about LCN and this one so far was the worst. It was poorly written. I know she tried to make the book sound very personal but it just came off that she threw this thing together. Then at the end she says it took her three years to complete this? I could have written her story in less time. The funny thing is, she had help. Ugh!!! It is so repetitive I got tired of reading the same words over and over again. She contradicts herself all the time and constantly goes into self pity. Truth is, everything she says is absolutely taken with skepticism because she even says she picked up things in bits in pieces (the life, that is). She just put stuff together in her mind from certain things that may have overheard, saw, etc. If they make a movie out of this one it will have to be pretty cheesy. If you're a mafia fan, read it just to put a notch on the booklist. Otherwise, skip it.
Rating:
Summary: Not great but something to read to pass time.
Review: Ok. I read lots of books about LCN and this one so far was the worst. It was poorly written. I know she tried to make the book sound very personal but it just came off that she threw this thing together. Then at the end she says it took her three years to complete this? I could have written her story in less time. The funny thing is, she had help. Ugh!!! It is so repetitive I got tired of reading the same words over and over again. She contradicts herself all the time and constantly goes into self pity. Truth is, everything she says is absolutely taken with skepticism because she even says she picked up things in bits in pieces (the life, that is). She just put stuff together in her mind from certain things that may have overheard, saw, etc. If they make a movie out of this one it will have to be pretty cheesy. If you're a mafia fan, read it just to put a notch on the booklist. Otherwise, skip it.
Rating:
Summary: Whine, Whine, Whine
Review: This is a book about a whiner with grammar issues. In fact, she whines so much, her book gave me a headache. Her mother hated her, she hated school,she has no friends, her husband beat her, her husband was a criminal...whine whine whine. This could all be fascinating stuff, but because she whines instead of telling a story, it's boring. You just know the reason she has no friends is because no one wants to hear about it all the time.
I have no sympathy for this woman. All she did was make bad choices. I can't figure out if the purpose of this book was a bid for sympathy or to complain about Sammy Gravano, who, for all his faults, seemed to find a better writer, as well as editor, for his own book. Her throughts are convoluted, out of sequence and I doubt she's as innocent as tries to appear.
Skip this book or get it from the library. Even though I only paid fifty cents, I still feel like I wasted money.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting but Unenlightening
Review: This is an interesting, even engrossing, read, but don't expect any startling revelations about the state of organized crime in America or a penetrating insight into the psychology of mobsters. People who read this book as an historical document do so at their own risk. Many of the dates given are erroneous, and Ms. Milito seems to arbitrarily assign aliases to many of the key characters in the narrative, thereby rendering it fairly useless as a research tool for those interested in the history of the Gambino Family. Ms. Milito does attempt to invest her mobster husband Louie with a certain tragic grandeur and depth, as Donald Goddard successfully did in his biography of Crazy Joe Gallo, or Kennedy did in his novelization of the life of Legs Diamond. She fails in this. Louie Milito emerges as little more a petty, self-destructive thug and hit-man, the kind of savage, cowardly fool who can shoot a friend in the back of the head on the orders of his criminal superiors and then go home and vicously beat his wife. Ms. Milito is straightforward in her examination of his cruelty, his venality, and she tries hard to contrast this by showing how he liked the solitude of the countryside and could manifest tenderness towards his children. Unfortunately, these observations are superficial and ultimately explain nothing about the man and how he became the malignant parasite that he was. It can be argued that this isn't entirely Ms. Milito's fault. After all, trying to explain evil and its causes is a topic that has continued to stump the most learned philosophers, sociologists, and theologians. Ms. Milito tells only what she knows- her tormented past, her relationship with her passive father and callous mother, her molestation as a child, her mental illness, the anguish and pain she often felt, a torment that almost killed her. She speaks openly of her disdain and hatred of an acknowledged monster like Sammy "The Bull" Gravano. John Gotti is barely mentioned, although he gave the sanction for her husband's murder. So, what's left? This book could be seen by some as urban soap opera. a sensationalistic melodrama with spousal abuse and the Mafia as its centerpiece, except that it happened to a real person, and Ms. Milito's pain is explicitly-rendered and genuine. You'll probably find yourself liking Ms. Milito, as I did, and wishing her well. The efficacy of Ms. Milito's book is as a 1st person recounting of the wounds that dysfunctional families can inflict, the scars they can leave, and the horrors of marriage to an abusive, sociopathic hood. But don't expect an insider's account of the state of New York's Mafia or a treatise on the brutal characters who populate that world. For that, you'll need to read Gravano's book.
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