Booksneeze: This Thing of Ours

This Thing of Ours: How Faith Saved My Mafia Marriage by Cammy Franzese

 

(from the back cover)
A match made on a movie set and a lavish Beverly Hills wedding.  The beginning of Camille Franzese's story takes on the shade of an exotic fairy tale.  But a closer look at her marriage to mafia capo Michael Franzese exposes more than a decade of anguish endured in the shadows of her husband's crimes.  The fear of arrest, the prison sentences, the house raids from federal agents - Camille lived through it all, not knowing whether her family could remain unbroken amid the turmoil and uncertainty that accompanied her husband's life of crime.  Discover how Camille's devotion to her marriage and her faith in God's larger plan led to deliverance from devastation.  Hers is a story of choices, consequences, and the prayers that hold us up when everything around us is falling down.

My Thoughts:

I was very excited about reading this book.  It's not every day you get to find out how things really work in the mafia.  Well, unfortunately, if that's what you are looking for, this book will disappoint.  Despite the subtitle of this book, Franzese's husband was on his way out of the mafia by the time they married.  In fact, he left for prison less than a year after their wedding and from that point on, he was no longer a mafia man.

Her story is more about her life during the two four-year stints her husband spent in prison and what she learned.  There are two overwhelming themes throughout the book.  One is that you must stand by your choices no matter the consequences.  So you married a former mafia boss and didn't know it.  Too bad - it was your choice to marry him without researching how he got his money.  You must stand by your choice whether you like the consequences or not.

The other theme is that you must cover every part of your life in prayer, whether things are going well or not.  Cammy learned to rely on God when she was raising 3 kids with a husband in prison.  She had to continually rely on him when her husband got home and they adjusted to life together again.  She relies on him today to help her learn to relate to her grown children.

So while this isn't a book about life in the mafia, it is a book about forgiveness and commitment.  My only complaint is that the author tends to go off on rabbit trails at time and can be hard to follow. 

I give this book a 4 out of 5 stars.


I was provided with a complimentary copy of this book to review by Booksneeze.  The opinions are my own.