Rating: 
Summary: Watered down "Thing of Beauty"
Review: No one can say that the life of Gia Carangi wasn't tragically fascinating--especially the author of this book. Unfortunately it takes him around the corner to the milk store and back until he makes his point. This book is over 400 pages long, and although it's well-written and documented, it could have been at least 100 pages shorter. Stephen Fried has definitely done his homework, but this book feels more like a documentary of the 70's fashion world than a biography of Gia. He goes a bit overboard in detailing EVERY SINGLE person in Gia's life and it gets frustrating for the reader who really doesn't care much about every hairdresser, photographer or lunch lady that ever entered Gia's life. For those of you out there that are interested in every aspect of 70's fashion--read this book, you'll love it. For those of you who could care less--you might want to skip this one.
Rating: 
Summary: I loved it and hated it at the same time
Review: OK, I absolutely loved this book. However, it left me wanting more. Fried takes a strict journalistic non biased approach to Gia and her friends and family. I wanted to know more about her personal life and thoughts. I guess the mysteries died with Gia and she probably wanted it that way. However, I read in an earlier review that people were not interested in the fashion world, etc. and that was not why they bought this book. I think an understanding of the fashion industry and "fashionistas" was essential in understanding what caused the downward spiral in this beautiful woman's life. (not to mention her upbringing having a lot to do with it as well)
Rating:
Summary: Gia a modern day tragedy.
Review: Stephen Fried wonderfuly captures the life and times of the girl who was responsible for the word Supermodel. Fried takes us on a fantastic journey which was Gia's life. His brand of tell it like it is journalism is refreshing. His portrayal of Gia's Joan Crawfordish mother Kathleen is extremely eye-opening. This is not the same Kathleen which was featured in the movie GIA. Instead we see Kathleen as she is self-centered, unloving, and cold-blooded. What kind of mother would not let her child come home to die? By the time I finished this book, I realized that GIA was a product of an unloving mother who greatly contributed to her tragic fate....
Rating:
Summary: Gone But Not Forgotten
Review: Thank you to Stephen Fried for immortalizing GIA. She may be gone but she will *never* be forgotten.
Rating:
Summary: heartbreaking and thought provoking
Review: Thanks to Fried for a well-written, and long overdue, book about model Gia Carangi - a sad, sweet, unique, and very original, woman. This story will touch anyone who has a heart...while many may ask why someone with such a beautiful soul and who seemed to have it all, would do the things she did that brought her eventual death, after reading this book, they may get a better idea of why Gia basically destroyed herself - even though I don't believe that was her aim. Not only is this a story of a sad life that ended way too soon and shouldn't have happened that way, along with some idea of life as a model, but it also is a story of how NOT to be a mother. Unfortunately, many of Gia's friends and the rest of her family were not much better. Read this book and judge for yourself; but remember the good things about Gia, and watch out for those you love better than Gia was cared for.
Rating:
Summary: THING OF BEAUTY:GIA CARANGI
Review: The book Thing of Beauty was a very touching book on GIA'S life and how it ended to soon.The people in GIA'S life had a chance to help her and they just looked the other way.I'm only 15 and I wish that I could go back in time and get to know GIA has a person not just a model.All she needed was a friend who cared and loved her.I beleave that if someone had cared she would still be alive.This book really touched me and made me cry.It's a shame that not many people even know who GIA was.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating and eye opening
Review: The book was a very in-depth survey of a girl-woman lost in herself and the world. At times, I could actually feel what she was going through. Covering the 70's 80's era in the book in as much depth as in was, was very instrumental to understanding Gia and her pressures. A must read for those who lived the 70's-80's and also for those that are intrigued by its impact on society and how sometimes what you see on the outside is not really what you should be looking at.
Rating:
Summary: thing of greatness
Review: this book is absolutely one of my favorites. i am a fan of gia's and this is her story. it is so touching. she was a beautiful woman who suffered inside. read it!! actually, buy it, because you will want to read it again and again.
Rating: 
Summary: A textbook view of Gia: Great Facts: No Emotion.
Review: This book is amazing in its extensive detail. As thoroughly researched as any textbook, the facts and interviews are almost mindboggling. Anything you wanted to know about Gia's life is presented here in excruciating journalistic detail. . .but not everything you wanted to know, and the journalistic detail is as cold and detatched as a robot. There is no emotional image, no living picture, no mythological resonnance, no romantic thread to hold together the parade of facts. The author tangents so much on the lives and careers of the other players in Gia's life that in many chapters she becomes secondary, or even tertiary. This book might better be titled: Gia: The Lives of Those Who Knew Her." The .. movie (which was supposedly unoffically based on this book) managed to take the raw facts of Gia's life and mythologize them into a meanigful story, if a bit lacking in cold hard facts, that gave us a rotund image of the flaming fluid life of Gia. The film takes the facts and the remeniscents of those who knew her and weaves these threads into a living tapestry which this book can not achieve. And yet, I can't close without giving credit to the authors amazingly detailed work. He is, after all, a journalist, and not a novelist. He's not a myth weaver, he's a fact reporter. And so I can't really say that he failed in his mission, as the mission of any journalist is to provide as clear and concise a body of facts as she/he can. I can only say that I wanted more poetry and more litarature in this book. So, I say buy it if you are in any way interseted in Gia or in anyway intersted in the fashion world/industry. But if you want to taste Gia's fire, rent the .. movie.
Rating:
Summary: A girl made of stardust
Review: This book is basically the only sound source on Gia Carangi, except a few documentaries aired on American television and a few websites. As the only book exclusively on her, even though as has been previously mentioned, the book deals with rather ridiculous fashion industry issues, it deserves a great deal of credit.
I don't think that the fashion industry per se had anything to do with Gia's tragedy, we should instead doubt her taste in friends and lovers. But most of all, she was for some reson incredibly susceptible to heroin, and that is the true source of her misery. Chances are that Gia was manic depressive with a great deal of mania thrown in there, and received great relief from this sedating/seductive drug.
To my thinking - absolutely nobody - not even Marilyn Monroe herself could compare to this outstandingly beautiful woman. She should have been an actress, definitely, and I'm surprised that nobody seems to have taken her on for such a project. Perhaps her being a lesbian (and less interested in convincing directors) and a rebel prevented her from this. Perhaps she wasn't interested. She did say in one "interview"/home-made movie with a very stoned twitching Gia, that she wanted to "make a big splash in scenography".
Take home message: This book is adequately well-written, deals with fashion industry in a simplistic way but despite this it's great because it's got pictures of Gia in it as well as some good research on her life. One thing would be better than this: A compilation of Gia photos.
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