Rating: 
Summary: a need for amnesia
Review: everyone in the world is reviewing this book, but i'll get my two cents in as well. the author deserves the pulitzer prize just for coming through this. what i dont know is how he could re-enact it by writing down every last detail. i would have been off to the nearest hypnotist to induce total amnesia, and i'm not joking. there is certainly no question here about authenticity or writing what you know about. the detail is so graphic it made me sick more than once (why 4 stars). this is not a criticism; good writing makes you care about what is happening. it was particularly interesting to me as i had just finished a book on nonphysical abuse in families; while this father did not beat up his wife or children, and professed to be loving and caring, he most certainly abused them by keeping control of the money, which he spent on drinking, allowing the family to literally starve and go without the most basic necessities. i wonder if this woman and her children thought of the father as abusive. in those days probably not. the other thing worth mentioning is that it seemed strange to me that people still find the U.S. such a paradise. although these people were living in the most terrible poverty, that no one anywhere should have to live in, there seemed to be no gangs, drugs, guns, or violent crime. in the U.S. these things are not even limited to poor neighborhoods any longer, and even in the 1930s, the author mentions crime and gangsters and gun violence in America. i think this is an important book and you dont have to be Irish, Catholic, or poor to relate to it. Although it wasn't pretty, I'll be interested in the sequel.
Rating: 
Summary: Classic
Review: If you enjoyed Angela's Ashes, the next book you read will have to be My First Cousin Once Removed.
Rating:
Summary: McCourt weaves a wonderful tapestry of characters
Review: I managed to read most of this book on a plane to New York and could barely look up to eat my in-flight meal. FM's hero has all the helpless raffishness of JP Donleavy's Darcy Dancer and inhabits a world populated by absurd characters who could almost pass unnoticed in a Flann O'Brien novel.I know it is annoying when a neighbouring passenger bursts out laughing, but in my defence I would say that Angela's Ashes has some of the funniest scenes I have seen in a novel in an awfully long time. ("Forgive me father I have sinned, it has been 2 minutes since my last confession" is a wonderful line) There is sufficient pathos to give the book balance and charm and the pithiness of some of the death scenes make them particularly moving. I have deducted one-star from the review for the very unsatisfactory ending. The whole pace and balance of the book is dented when our hero, Frank arrives in America. Suddenly, McCourt shifts into a grab-it-now-while-you-can-mode and the final page leaves us with the impression that he is saying to us "You've paid your money, you read the book, so now clear off!" Or maybe this was a metaphor for Frank's new world and I simply missed it. A must read!
Rating:
Summary: Heartrending and hilarious. Keep the tissues handy.
Review: I finished this book months ago, and it still haunts me. I plan to be the first in line (on-line?) when the sequel is released this fall. Although born and raised in this country, I am Irish through and through, and I responded deeply to the absolute authenticity of McCourt's voice. After finishing this book, I felt that I understood my mother's family much clearly. Yes, just as you've heard, terrible things happen in "Angela's Ashes", many of them, but just when you think you can't take any more, McCourt turns the tables and leaves you laughing and crying all at once. In thinking back on this book, I can't help but quote (sort of) that other famous Irishman with a fine appreciation for black humor, Beckett: "We must go on.... I can't go on...... I will go on!" Now that's Irish for you. So quick -- get the book!
Rating:
Summary: Exellent
Review: I really like this book. She's is so full of beauty that you can't put her down. The author's humour make this book exellent and you laugh as many times as you cry!
Rating: 
Summary: DO NOT READ!!!!!! DO NOT READ!!!!!!
Review: This is a horrible book. And that is an understatement. It is more boring than watching paint dry. It is more depressing than a funeral. It is very repetitive. The entire book is the author complaining about his poor Irish childhood. Like anyone cares that he was poor as a child.
Rating:
Summary: Not for the faint-hearted.
Review: Powerful yet disturbing. Definitely a must read. Next to Catherine Dunne's "Interior Designing For All Five Senses" this is the most impacting book I've read in a very long time.
Rating:
Summary: Uplifting in Content, and Groundbreaking in Style
Review: Frank McCourt shares his painful and poverty-ridden childhood, including very flawed, but colorful characters, who never figure out a way to overcome their circumstances. Frank himself, does cleverly and slowly find his way out, and is evidence that one can never predict the final outcome of a human being raised in even the worst circumstances. This book is also evidence that the literary community is capable of recognizing great literature, even when it comes from an unknown writer. Frank's style is a type of stream of consciousness, that takes on a different dimension than Joyce or Wolfe. It is funny, lymerical, tragic, goes from character from character, and comes to age as Frank comes to America.
Rating:
Summary: Remebering more than the strife.
Review: Last fall, I read this book for a LIT class I was taking. I found it to be one of the most touching novels I have ever read. From the perspective of a middle class family located in Mid-America in the 1990's, I was completly overwhelmed by the amount of striff and terror that Frank McCourt accounts in Angela's Ashes. Reading some of the other rewieves on this page, specifically from the person who on 5/24 gave this phenominal book 1 star, I had to write one of my own. The essential part of reading this book, regardless of how you viewed the finished result, is that if Frank McCourt had not retold every "ugly" detail of his youth, there would be no story. NO life is void of disgusting events. Every life, including that of the McCourt family, has to endure pain and suffering inorder to come out on top in the end. It is the fact that Frank McCourt is able to look back on the events of his childhood and write about them with a mixture of agony, laughter, and triumph the speaks volumes for the character of the man that is Frank McCourt.
Rating:
Summary: Terrific tale of human exsistence!!
Review: What a phenomenal story of life in Ireland...all the struggles and hardships and Frank still managed to come out strong. I hope that he continues to write and would love to hear more about his life after he arrived back in America!! Two thumbs up!!
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