ok I am about finishing this book.I do not generally like people living off from other people's creativity (which often the most difficult to have) but after I read here that it is not bad I gave it a try. I actually enjoyed the book at first a lot then a little bit less, but it passed the test- I read it through.

First of all I think it is better written book than the original stylistically and it is more consistent. The Puzo novel seemed sort of rushed as it had consistency problems and it had parts that were cleverly cut out from the movie that I would never want to read again(apart from the ones I read over and over of course).

The deepth of the story seems to be enough for a 100 pages, but I can accept the added 300 because the story is flowing nicely. Some places the book is more interesting than others, I have to admit that I am not chewing just swallowing when I read so I left out the parts which were not interesting to me skimming them through maybe.(I have to say I could not do this with the original even I read the disturbing parts first)
This happened more often in the second part of the book- I liked the beginning much much more. The last few pages just rush through the war, we do not get much out of it.

I liked the Luka story- it actually made more sense than in the original. I liked the story how Sonny became part of the organization and how he made his bones (although I thought he would have a bigger role in the war after the shooting). I did not care about the Sandra story line at all. It was clear where it was heading. For a while I thought she was Theresa and will end up with Tom but I realized my mistake in the middle of the book and lost interest. I guess I just wanted a less straightforward story with that perhaps.

I really did not like (whether it was Puzo's idea or not)that (spoiler) Vito got Tom's father killed, although I can see that the book needed this dramatic effect. However the story gave Vito's character a different angle(motivation), the position of Tom in the family changed (in my opinion it made his loyalty vulnerable. actually a lot of people knew about the murder, who could tell Tom BUT in my opinion to get to understand Tom we need his relationship with Vito& family to be very pure), it gave Sonny's character a different angle- all to the worse.