I don't like to speak ill of the dead, so I'll try to make this as short, sweet, and honest as possible.

Mario Puzo clearly enjoyed the Borgia clan almost as much as I do. He clearly put a lot of time and effort into this book. He clearly put a lot of love into "The Family". However, he encounters two very problematic issues.

Firstly, he was completely off-base in his interpretation of the Borgias, and thus he fails to make them effective and interesting characters. Even when he's supposed to be flawed, Alexander Sextus is presented as this glorious man we're supposed to believe in constantly. Or maybe we're supposed to hate him? I don't know. Compared to Jeremy Irons' and Neil Jordan's interpretation of Alexander as a man who alternates humanly between bumbling and scheming, this person is weird and annoying, and... almost a bit of a try-hard?

Then there's Lucrezia, who Puzo viewed as a "good girl" (her tendency towards incest notwithstanding). And nothing else. Really. She just spent a lot of time being a damsel and standing in as this angel for Cesare and Rodrigo, and... yes. No. Stop. Her adultery was either not mentioned or glossed over, unless it was with Cesare. (Which did not happen in reality, but whatever.)

Cesare is presented as a failed hero. Puzo tries so hard to make him easy to relate to and heroic that he forgot that history says that this man had a serious problem. Cesare Borgia was borderline sociopathic; he loved no one but his sister. He was calculating and cruel, and that is exactly why he was successful. Puzo makes him more of a bad boy than a monster. He's afraid to "go there".

And I won't spend much time on this, but--the second problem is that Puzo is a mediocre if not bad writer in terms of prose. This is just... very clunky. Very awkward. It's clear to me that whatever he wrote for "The Godfather"--my favorite movie--worked better as a screenplay.

The sentimentality and effort is appreciated; however, this book is ultimately a failure.