Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt

Advantages: I don't really think there are any formt his story!
Disadvantages: Why did people have live like this and how can we complain today

I have recently finished reading one of the most compelling stories that I have ever read and was truly moved to read of such heart ache and pain and to think that it is all actually true. The sad thing is the author of this masterpiece remains strong to his roots to this day and writes about his childhood in a way that would put many people to shame for complaining about the childhood that they have had! The author in question is Frank McCourt ...
...landed back on the Emerald Isle to Limerick for what seemed to be less than an easy childhood. McCourt writes about that childhood with what seems to be great passion, he quotes on the cover of the book as follows: ‘When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, ... Read review

Advantages: True account of l930s Ireland and poverty
Disadvantages: Depressing. No pace. No direction

...heaps? I digress, but Angela's Ashes produced yet again negative reactions. Oh it started off well, a poor Irish immigrant family living in Brooklyn during the depression, moving to even more poverty in Limerick, Ireland with intolerant and uncharitable relations who do not take kindly to the alcoholic husband from the North of the Country who has moved there with his wife and children in the hope of a better future. Written in the present tense, ...
.....towards him. In summary, Angela's Ashes is an account of one boy's impoverished childhood which begins in New York, moves to Ireland and ends with him returning to seek his fortune back in America at the age of l6 following his first pint in the local pub. If you like rather depressing tales of hardship and woe then this is the book for you. If however you're like me and enjoy a tale with some pace, meaning, and characters that you can breathe, ... Read review

Advantages: great book, good chapter length
Disadvantages: not everyone likes it

Angela's Ashes Frank McCourt Angela's Ashes is a book, and now film, of the childhood memoirs of Frank McCourt. The book won the Pulitzer Prize and has been given praise by critics all over the world. It is the first of two books by Frank McCourt, both are memoirs. This book covers his life from 3 to 19 years old. The sequel, 'Tis continues the story onwards. Characters Frank McCourt (author) Frank is (obviously) the main character. When the ...
...in Limerick where many of Angela's relations live. Within a few years, the two twins die; firstly Oliver. Eugene then becomes depressed and dies soon after. Frank goes to school and at the tender age of 14 leaves to get a job, why, because his alcoholic father can't get a job because of his northern accent and when he does, he drinks it all. The next 5 years see Frank trying to raise money to go to America where the streets are paved with gold ... Read review

Advantages: Excellent story
Disadvantages: Very depressing

The good old days ... seen through splendid rose tinted glasses, all jumpers for goalposts and long summer evenings, the joy of the simple pleasures. Those grand old days... This book puts that litany of lies firmly to bed in the starkest, cruellest, grimmest way possible. As books go, this is the most morbid, depressing, cheerless one of them all and if you're desperate for a good cry then check out this tale of a poor Irish family from the 1930s, ...
...the same time it is an absolute masterpiece, a wonderful, wonderful exposure of prejudice, the religious divide and the total poverty that lay behind Ireland's Republican movement. Books of this magnitude come along rarely and I'm sorry if you're expecting some of the normal dave27 cheery lines - humour is totally out of place when thinking about something like this, although while it is a desolate and desperate, desperate book, it is also one of ... Read review

Advantages: well written and very graphic
Disadvantages: it all happened

This is another film and book I have seen/read both. I have covered both really in this review as they are silmilar and both excellent and compelling, however the book goes into more detail so I tended to favour this. This is about poverty in Ireland and how a family cope through the eyes of a young boy, Frank McCourt. It tells of the pain and hardship suffered and the indignity of seeing his mother beg for food. Although this makes it sound somber, ...
...poverty stricken parents, who are trying to get you school shoes , as you wear none, and the inspectors calling to validate the claim, find they have ’’gone to Italy’’!! Confused ..well this is the name for the upstairs rooms, they have to reside in due to flooding in the lower rooms. Also a funny yet sad moment, is when they realise the mattress they are all sharing is flea ridden, they are seen stamping the mattress in the ... Read review

Advantages: We learn of this illness
Disadvantages: Sickening

...and that the majority of her education must have been completed as an adult but the sheer fluidity and language contained tells of a well educated articulate person who has overcame her childhood problems in order to educate us into Munchausen by Proxy disorder. My thoughts after reading this book are of pity for all those concerned within. It is hard to comprehend such a life as Julies and yet to be able to move on in the way she has and to do it so positively is testament to the perseverance of the human spirit. Inspiring but without lecturing I am glad I have read it. Having read other books concerning child abuse and deprivation, notably A Child Called It by Dave Peltzer and Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt, I though I was immune to being so affected by yet another. I was wrong. Sickened by Julie Gregory Century Publishing ISBN 1... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: Realism, humour
Disadvantages: No speech marks, can be slow

...'Tis is the sequel to Angela's Ashes, by Frank McCourt. It is autobiographical and tells us the large majority of his adult life. We pick up the story as he arrives in New York. Throughout the novel we see McCourt work in the lobby of a hotel, have frequent problems with antagonistic bosses and landords, and generally struggle to survive. Later in the book we watch McCourt progress thorught the army - he's fortunate not to be sent to war - and he finds that life as a clerk in the army is not quite what he expected. He constantly struggles with women - in the book he marries has children and subsequently breaks up with his dream wife. We learmn of the successes in the bar trade of his brother Malachy but are sadly confronted with the death of both his mother and father - near the end of the book. McCourt also describes his first steps... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Great read
Disadvantages: Sex life suffers

...After reading Angela’s Ashes, which I enjoyed immensely, I suggested to my wife that she might like to read it too. She doesn’t read much at all, she claims she is too busy “cleaning up after you lot!” and holding down a demanding job leaves her with little enough time without wasting it with her nose in a book! (She’s a philistine is my wife) However, one of her jobs required her to sit through the night with an old lady, in between nursing and looking after the old ladies welfare she had time to kill, she asked me to look out a book for her to read whilst the old lady slept. She was in a bit of a rush so I just grabbed the first book to hand, that just happened to be Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt, not her “kind of thing”, but she was running late and took it with her anyway... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful