Melissa Gorga Book Excerpt Released!

Real Housewife of New Jersey Melissa Gorga is releasing her new and first book “Love Italian Style” next month. A long excerpt from the first chapter has been released by her book’s publishing company.

Here it is- and may we say it is quite sad:

“It’s no joke that I married my father. Anthony Marco was, like Joe Gorga, a Leo, in the construction business, Italian, and from Jersey. He and my mother raised my two sisters and me in a comfortable house in Toms River. My father’s job was investing in properties, and building and selling them. We were the first family to get a Lincoln Town Car on our block, in 1989. I’ll never forget the Christmas that my father surprised my mother with his and hers Rolex watches. I thought it was so sweet and romantic. We always had new clothes, plenty of food to eat, and some luxuries. But I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth by any stretch of the imagination.

My parents got together when they were seventeen years old, and kept that teenage, obsessive love going for all their years together. Anthony was Donna’s one and only, her first and only. They had a traditional marriage. He went to work, and she stayed home with the three girls. My sisters Kim and Lysa were ten and twelve years older than me. I was the baby, their doll. They’d dress me up and play with my hair. I’d stand on the coffee table in the living room and sing. My father loved it when I sang, and always broke out the Camcorder to make a video. By the time I was eight, my sisters were eighteen and twenty. I always felt like I had three moms. My mother and father treated me like an only child. I was their baby, and they fussed over me.

This idyllic life came crashing down when I was a freshman in high school. I tried out for the freshman cheerleading squad. The coach posted the final list, and my name wasn’t there. All my friends were on it, though. I was devastated. I congratulated them, and they took pity on me.

Then, the coach put up the final list for varsity. My name was up there. I was as shocked as everyone else. This was unheard of, for a freshman to make varsity. My friends—so consoling when they thought I’d been cut from the freshman squad—were now sharpening their claws.

The older girls on varsity hated me, too. They screamed at me, pulled my hair, threatened me in the locker room and humiliated me in public. The school mascot was a pirate. They forced me to wear the smelly ridiculous pirate costume and run around the field all season.

I know, I know. First-world white girl problems. “The cheerleaders were mean to me!” story might not trigger much sympathy. The hazing was relatively mild. They didn’t cut me, or put me in the hospital. But they did humiliate and torment me for no apparent reason. I hadn’t done or said a thing to any of them, and yet they despised me with blazing irrational fury. The cheerleaders were my teammates. They were supposed to have my back. Instead, they were behind it, with knives. The rejection stung.

The cheerleader thumping, however, was a mere taste of what was to come. When I was a junior, my parents decided to move to Boca Raton. I was thrilled when I heard the news. I spontaneously broke out into a cheer. Gimme an F! Gimme an L! Gimme an O … you get the idea. I didn’t know much about Florida, but any change would be great. And, year-round sunshine was a bonus.

Day one at Boca High, my new classmates sized me up as a freak. I had curves and wore a jean jacket. My dark skin and hair were marks of the devil to the pastel-draped skinny blue-eyed blond Florida girls. They viciously mocked my accent (can’t say I blame them). The boys, meanwhile, were licking their chops and telling me how exotic I looked.

According to the Boca Bitches, my being Italian and from up North could mean only one thing: I was a slut. The opposite was true. I hadn’t so much as kissed a boy. In Jersey, I was considered a prude. I bit my lip and put on a brave front no matter what was said about me, and waited for things to change.

About a month into the school year, one of the Boca Bitches called me at home. “Hey, Melissa. We want to take you to a party,” she said.

I was psyched. Finally, they like me, I thought. Poor gullible, needy me. If I could go back in time to that phone conversation, I’d smack myself in the head and say, Don’t trust her! Instead, in my excitement, I volunteered to drive her and two other girls to the party.

They said the party was outdoors in a neighboring town. I had no idea where it was, or where I was driving. I was new to the area and it was pitch black out. I just followed their directions.

“This is it,” said the leader of the pack. I pulled into a driveway. We all hopped out of the car. As quickly as I thought I had “arrived,” instantly, thirty girls surrounded me. What the … I turned to ask the girls who had invited me, and they looked back at me with a blank stare.

These girls wasted no time. One quickly rushed up to me and punched me. Bam. Full force, right in the nose. Instantly, it started bleeding.

I was so shocked, it didn’t even hurt at first. About an hour later, my nose started throbbing and didn’t stop for days.

This maniac girl rubbed her knuckles and accused me of sleeping with her boyfriend. I barely knew the kid. We’d spoken two words to each other. When did saying “Hey” to a guy in the hallway mean that you were having sex with him?

“I’m a virgin,” I said to defend myself. It was the embarrassing truth. Yes, despite growing up at the corner of Whore and Skank Streets, or so they thought, I hadn’t done the deed. Not even close. The girl didn’t care. She already made up in her mind that I was to blame for her problems, even though I’d done nothing but be nice. (An interesting foreshadowing, as seen on RHONJ.)

The thirty girls were now slamming their fists on the roof of the car. It was like a scene from a gang movie that ended with me slumped and alone in the car. Desperate to flee, I hopped back in and started tapping the gas, hoping the girls would move out of the way. But they kept beating on the roof, the hood and the doors.

Fearing for my life, I stepped harder on the gas, making the car lurch forward. They finally cleared a path, and I floored it—right into a dead end. I had to turn around and drive through the pack again. This time, they threw rocks at me as I sped by.

Crying hysterically, I could barely see as I drove. It was a miracle I found my way home at all without crashing. My mother was horrified when I burst through the door with a bloody nose and red swollen eyes. When I finally stopped sobbing, I begged her to take me back to Toms River. I’d seen enough of the South to last the rest of my life.

My mother got on the phone to call my father. He’d stayed back in New Jersey, tying up loose ends. She told him what happened. He said, “Look, I’ll be finished with my business in a month. Just hang on until I get down there.”

A total Daddy’s girl, I was instantly comforted. As soon as he arrived, he’d protect me and make it better. He’d keep me safe. No one would mess with me then. I sniffed back my tears. One month seemed like an eternity to wait for him. But I knew it wasn’t really that long. I stayed focused on how incredible it would be when he finally walked through the door. I’d throw my arms around him, and never let go.

I counted the days, which made the wait harder and easier at the same time. I turned seventeen during that month, on March 21. Traditionally, my father bought me jewelry for my birthday gift. I don’t know why, but that year, he sent me a card. I remember thinking, This is weird. He’d never given me a card just from him. Usually, a card was attached to my gift, and signed by both of my parents. As weird as it seemed, I loved it and immediately called him to thank him. “Daddy, I love my card. Thank you so much. It means the world to me.” His handwritten note read as follows: “Melissa: Even though you are growing up, you will always be my little girl. And, no matter what, I will always love you and be there for you no matter what. I will always love my baby girl. Love, Daddy.” Thank God I didn’t pull a classic seventeen-year-old move, and toss the card. I still have it, in fact. It was as if I knew I should keep it and my father knew he had to tell me something and make it tangible for me to hold onto.

Eight days later, on March 29, I was at my girlfriend’s house for a sleepover. My mother called very late at night on the phone. She was screaming and crying. “Melissa, your father was in an accident. He hit a tree and he died,” she said. I dropped to my knees, and started howling. I threw the phone.

My friend asked, “What’s going on? Are you okay?”

I couldn’t speak. I was in complete shock.

My aunt came to pick me up, and brought me back to my house. My grandmother and uncles were there. My mom was in the corner crying. We booked flights back to New Jersey. Tissues were everywhere, everyone in a panic. It was a sad scene.

My mother had been alone when she got the news. I pieced the story together later on. It was a rainy night. He was driving around a corner, and hit a tree. He died alone on the road. He was only forty-nine years old.

It took me a while to believe it. The shock knocked me out of my body. I felt like I was standing next to myself, looking with sadness at the girl who just lost her father. The trouble I’d had with the mean girls, which I had thought were huge problems, shrank to the size of a grain of sand. I did not know what pain really felt like until that moment. And, it got much worse as the days wore on.

Every morning was painful. When I opened my eyes, I wanted to immediately shut them again. I prayed that it was all a bad dream, that I would wake up and my father would still be alive. I remember going back and forth…”

Wow! Let us know what you think in the comments.