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Summary: Angela's Ashes Review
Review: Angela's Ashes is a wonderful book written about the author's childhood. It tells of his difficult family life, and the sickness and poverty in Ireland at the time. It's written beautifully in an Irish dialect that makes you fell part of the book. The slang expressions used by the characters are comical (i.e. "arse"). The book deals with serious issues like alcoholism and religion, and sometimes it's depressing. The way the author uses flashbacks sometimes can confuse you, especially as the family moves back and forth between America and Ireland. Overall, the best part of the book is the easy storytelling style and the family love, which exists despite their problems.
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Summary: The Best Book I Have Ever Read
Review: I am 13. I loved this book the moment i read it. I have watched the video and i was so moved by it that i tried the book. i couldn't put it down. his story would not be as good as it is without Frank's skill as a writer. i have never read tis though i know i will. at the moment i am desperate to find out if he ever saw his father again, how Alphie, Malachy, Michael and Angela are and if they ever joined Frank in America. I also want to know if he is married as i am desperate to know if he has complete hapiness now.my advice to you is - READ IT WHAT EVER YOU AGE YOU ARE!!!!!! AND IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT THEN SEE IT AS AN EXPERIANCE, BUT IT'S WORTH THE MONEY!!!!!!!!!!! HONEST!!!!!!!!!
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Summary: Touching and enlightening
Review: I am particularly impressed by the innocence and true rendition of his memories as a child. I recognize a great amount of similarities in details from my own childhood, which has been clouded and judged by the victimhood-labels I have acquired as an adult. Frank McCourt has inspired me to reevaluate my memories and remember them as I experienced them at each stage of my childhood. This book makes it easy for 'outsiders' to appreciate the 'less fortunate' (to say the least) histories of mankind, whithout being dragged into a searing, guilt-inflicting journey. The humor, and the honest, endearing descriptions of his experiences at the different stages of his childhood, make this book a pearl.
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Summary: JLLM's Review of Angela's Ashes
Review: Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt was a memoir of his childhood and teenage years. it took place in Ireland, where he grew up in poverty with his mom dad and siblings. His father was an alcoholic, his mother couldn't work. He grew up with four brothers and one sister, many in which died. Overall the book was interesting to read because it gave you look at a different way of life, but we feel it was very redundant in this way of life. This book allows you to enter a totally different world. A world that makes you appreciate what you have, when you see how others appreciate what little they have. It was interesting to see the way Frank handle each situation that he faced when he was a child, and as a teenager. He had to be more mature than most children should be. But growing up the way he did, made him into a stronger person as an adult.
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Summary: A Miserable Childhood
Review: "Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood". This quote is from Frank McCourt's memoir, Angela's Ashes. The constant theme throughout the entire memoir is the suffering McCourt went though during his childhood.
Frank McCourt was born in New York, and grew up in the slums of Limerick, Ireland. As he takes you through the memories of his childhood, the suffering at times is hard to believe. McCourt and his family lived with hardly any food or clothing, due to the pure laziness of McCourt's alcoholic father. And when you believe that things can't get any worse for the family, they do. Countless deaths, many illnesses, taunting school children, and small triumphs, all color the book and its many pages.
McCourt uses descriptions that put vibrant images in your head of his keen memory of his childhood. You can almost feel his hunger pains at times. When the slightest happiness occurs, you are there to feel the joy. Although the book is saddening, McCourt makes light of even the darkest of situations with his subtle humor.
His great ability to retain all of his life memories is truly remarkable; yet his childhood seems to the utmost extreme. We formed a sense of compassion for his family's mishaps, but some scenes leave us disturbed. With the repetitive deaths, illnesses, and poverty factors, we feel that tends to bore us. Overall it is a descriptive and valid piece of history.
We find this memoir to be one of the best pieces of literature we have ever read. Filled with emotion and with undying attentiveness, McCourt has caught our eye and has kept us there, by his side, throughout the book. His story illustrates a piece of world history that we must not forget, and it leaves us more thankful for what we have.
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Summary: Angela's Ashes
Review: Angela's Ashes
By Frank McCourt Angela's Ashes is a memoir about a young man growing up during the great depression. In the beginning of this book the characters are frequently changing in every way imaginable. Death and relocation are unavoidable consequences that cause this to happen.
The main character, Frank, is an extremely dynamic person. He starts out mild and meek but as the book progresses he becomes a more independent person. He begins to do more things as a child, than most people ever do as adults. As he grows and develops his independent he becomes a leader to his siblings. He felt he no choice but to take on this role.
We have not read a book with as much deep and profound meaning as this in a long time. The detail that the author goes into is incredible in some areas. The way that he is able to make you feel what is going on is inexplicable. He does this even without using useless words, which bore the reader.
The overall plot of the book is lacking in our opinion. Frank grows up and life sucks, that basically sums up the book. One of Frank McCourt's writing traits, which we don't like, is how he starts something and then, just like that, he will end it. We might have been a little more interested and focused on the book if he would have elaborated on a few more of his memories.
As a suggestion, from a group of students whom have read Angela's Ashes, do not read this book unless you feel like you can understand what is happening when you receive very little information. The book has its moments, just like every other book, yet there are more bad moments than good. We would not specifically suggest that you don't read this book; rather we suggest that you look for another memoir that would fit with your personal interests.
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Summary: Misery loves company ...
Review: If you're reading this review for the purpose of deciding whether to read 'Angela's Ashes,' I'll save you some time by suggesting you read the first page. The author tips his hand very early: "When I look back on my childhood, I wonder how I survived at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while." If this sounds attractive, by all means read on but be warned: when he says miserable, he *means* it. Before confronting misery, though, I must comment on an aspect of this best-seller I've not yet seen discussed in any great detail: that this "memoir" must be largely a fake. I simply refuse to believe that Mr. McCourt can remember childhood details (like word-for-word parental conversations on important subjects) at the tender ages -- not to mention conditions -- that he claims. Ask yourself if you can remember exact accounts of when you were three or four-much less whole adult conversations-and you'll see my point. Simply put, a lot of this probably didn't happen -- at least as meticulously written. And so what? One could easily claim he got the gist of it right, and aren't the Irish a bit prone to, as they say, a bit of embellishment anyway? Well, sure, but a memoir is a memoir and you can't have it both ways. Make no mistake, however--in the area of Irish license Frank McCourt is dead on. Having had an Irish Catholic upbringing meself (though not the tooth and claw version practiced in the home country), I can verify many of his details personally. In describing everything from eccentric relatives to the bewilderingly complex nature of Catholic sacraments, the author betrays a sure hand. While this doesn't quite excuse passing his book off as an autobiography, McCourt still engages and entertains. The author's means of bringing details to the surface deserve particular attention. The book's rambling, conversational, stream-of-consciousness style seems custom-made for his subject: "If you're the good boy for that day and you answer the questions he gives it to you and lets you eat it there at your desk so that you can eat it in peace with no one to bother you the way they would if you took it into the yard. Then they'd torment you, Gimme a piece, gimme a piece, and you'd be lucky to have an inch left for yourself." While occasionally hard to read, this self-evoking grammar ultimately can't be divorced from McCourt's story and certainly brought his characters to life for me far better than stiff formal dialogue. Between these exchanges, McCourt also has the opportunity to exercise his considerable descriptive powers. While I accuse the author of some creative forgery, in an evocative capacity he's nearly redeemed; I heard and especially *smelled* what he describes. A world of smoky, sticky pubs and homes in squalid lanes lacking indoor plumbing comes pungently alive. With style as his strong suit, Mr. McCourt also brings considerable power to his substance. The substance, however, is so bleak it borders on suicidal. This is a very dark, naturalistic, and occasionally horrifying book. Nearly everyone--save the children--is devoid of simple human values. Adults are portrayed as maniacally depressed or angry and hardly shy about attempting to destroy the psyches of everyone within earshot--especially the children. His parents don't escape notice; Dad is the very definition of alcoholic (to the point of drinking away money for his family's basis subsistence), Mam a desperate nebbish ultimately reduced to begging and prostituting herself--and it's far from clear that she's doing this exclusively for the family's benefit. I certainly share the author's astonishment at his survival; if you can stand over 400 funereal pages of this, then by all means dive in. And maybe survival is the point here, but it's surely a bleak one; every triumph (Dad get a job, the author finds a soulmate) is swiftly crushed within a few pages. Even so, McCourt ends on a high note and rather obviously sets up a sequel. And though I've not read the follow-up ("'Tis"), if I ever did it would be with some trepidation. Having endured a childhood littered with demonic authority figures, the author leaves us on the cusp of his own adulthood. I shudder to think of who he might become -- but of course we already know, since this continuing "memoir" can only come from the same gifted writer before us.
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Summary: Great book but tough to believe it is a memoir.....
Review: This is a great book no doubt. The recollection of his childhood with added humor which only hindsight can provide is truly heartrending. No child in this world deserves to grow through this. But I have my own doubts whether all the content was real and not a fiction of his imagination. I did ask some Irish immigrants to the US and they were upset about the stereotyping of the hard nosed Irish Catholic in this book. In many parts, the book seemed to offer whatever you want to hear and not what actually transpired. I read a very similar book about poverty in India told with a distinct sense of humor - "A Fine Balance" by Rohington Mistry. If you enjoyed Angela's Ashes then you will definitely like this one.
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Summary: Wonderful tale that will be loved by all who read it!
Review: Mr. McCourt describes his life in Limerick, Ireland. WOW! What a book. His story is incredible and really demonstrates the true greatness of the human spirit. A MUST READ!
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Summary: Angela's Ashes
Review: "When I look back on my childhood, I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was of course, a miserable childhood."
Frank McCourt expresses his life emotionally and physically through his novel, Angela's Ashes. Using his Irish dialect, he helps readers to experience his life full of poverty, death, sickness and simple pleasures.
Resulting in the death of their precious baby girl, his family moved back to their homeland, Ireland. Their hope for a better life perished before their eyes. Malachy, the father, continued to "drink away the wages" at the local pubs with the money they rarely had. Angela, the mother continued to give birth to their children that they couldn't support. Over the next fifteen years and six brothers and sisters later, Frank found ways to make the worst times better. He worked at an early age after his father vanished to England, and even did the simple things like taking dance lessons to please his mother. Finally, by the age of nineteen, Frank had earned enough money to fulfill his dream of going back to America for a future full of opportunities.
We feel that Frank is one of the most determinded characters that we read about. He was able to see beyond the poverty, hunger and necessities in order to make him and his family's dreams come true.
Angela's Ashes represents many different types of emotions. Times of need brought tears to our eyes, while a few experiences and comments made us laugh at his humor. His variety of vocabulary was endless, and the writing style was very detailed. He did a wonderful job of drawing the reader into each environment, and almost allowing us to experience his feelings ourselves.
A negative aspect of this book was the lack of quotations when a character spoke. Only a few quotes were used, and it confused us, the readers. It left us trying to figure out in our own minds if someone was either saying it, or thinking it. Also, the beginning of the novel seemed to be drawn out much more than necessary. McCourt gave us more information than we actually needed.
All around, Angela's Ashes was a depressing story. It introduced us to a life during the Depression, from people without an American point of view. It represented the lives of many who suffered in this time of need and desperation, and how they overcame their problems in order to make their dreams come true.
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