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Summary: Misery so real it's unreal - a must read
Review: Someday I'd like to personally meet and thank Mr. McCourt for sharing his story with us.
Rating:
Summary: HEART WARMING, HEART BREAKING
Review: AN ALL INCLUSIVE VIEW INTO THE WORLD OF THE IRISH POOR. ANGELA'S ASHES HELPS THE READER TO SEE INTO THE PAST AND UNDERSTAND THE PRESENT OF IRELAND AND THE WORLD OF A CHILD. MAGNIFICIENT!
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Summary: It is truly a great novel! Everyone needs to read this!
Review: From the moment I picked up the book, Frank McCourt stole my heart. I could really feel the heartache of a small child faced with situations that the characters live. Coming from an Irish family, I understand what my grandmother went through growing up in America with Irish immigrant parents.
Rating: 
Summary: Literature?
Review: For those who suggest "Angela's Ashes" was among the best books they have read, my comment would be: read more. As a scholar in literature and an avid reader, I was truly disappointed in this novel. Frank McCourt's childhood was certainly miserable enough to warrant his desire to tell his story, but his inability to tell the story in a concise manner was frustrating. The novel could easily have been wrapped up in one hundred pages or less. It was the same drivel over and over and over. Was anyone surprised when Malachy drank all his wages, after the third time? Did any of you actually expect he would send home money from England? As for Angela, I found her character weak of body and will. So what if she was depressed? She had children that needed her. She was portrayed as flat, and spineless. This book was nowhere near the read I expected it to be. I liken it to a movie that is only worth seeing on video. I should've waited for the paperback. Then I wouldn't feel so ripped off.
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Summary: Amazing and Poignant, Hilarious and Heartbreaking
Review: I first read a portion of Angela's Ashes in the New Yorker, a battered copy of which I found under the bed while I was recovering from the flu and bronchitis and thinking, martyr-like, that I was certainly near death. The more I read, the more ashamed I felt. I felt ashamed for laughing, and ashamed for feeling that I knew even remotely what suffering was. When I finally read the entire book, I could feel that things would never be the same. Only a few books in my life have affected me this way, but when they do, for good or bad, I know the author has done what it is that compells authors in the first place--change the world, one person at a time. I laughed, I bawled...I read at least half the book to my sister over the phone, and have pestered my husband unceasingly to read it for himself. Frank McCourt has given the world a wonderful book.
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Summary: This book might break your heart.
Review: I think it is wonderful that such a well written book that has deep things to say has become a commercial success! However, if you have a soft heart for kids, you might find the pain of this book a bit overwhelming. I loved the book and glad that Mr. McCourt has written it, but I doubt that I'll ever read it again. Some in my family (of Irish background) couldn't finish it because the early chapters were too painful. On the other hand, I look forward to the day that my very comfortable middle class children are old enough to read this in some literature class in the future. Reliving someone else's pain is good in small doses.
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Summary: Fond rememberances, bitterness, and redundancy
Review: McCourt's style instantly sucked me in, helping me to see again the world from more innocent eyes. It was very touching to see his portrayal of the resilience of children's souls. But when those souls slowly grow older, and recognize things for what they truly are, you are also reminded that those souls struggle to escape the world in which they are born. While much more realistic than a story in which the child grows up to earn billions or win a world reknowned award, the final third of the novel is flat and unrewarding. If the book were to teach me something, it would be that I could quit my life and somehow still manage to get by. Never once would it teach me to stand up for myself.
Rating:
Summary: Good Read
Review: Very good read. I forgot I was reading a book at times-like a conversation. The ending is a disappointment,(trite), but I still wanted to know more. A sequil? It took the author 50 years to get this one to press, so I guess I won't hold my breath!
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Summary: You might have to read this one twice!
Review: McCourt writes his memoir in the voice of a child with an Irish lilt that sings to the reader. At first painful and depressing, but somewhere along the way you end up running through the "Lanes" with Frankie, dressed in rags, cold and hungry, but hearing the lyrics of Limerick and surviving in order to hear the stories of Ireland. And when we finally arrive in America, the embers still burn beneath Angela's Ashes.
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Summary: It's too unbelieveable not to be a true story.
Review: Ah, to remember life through the eyes of a 10yr. old, is to remember things through screened innocence.
Unfortunately, Frank McCourt never had the carefree innocence the rest of us remember and that is what makes this book so compelling.
How would we, as lucky Americans have survived what he survived - especially in an age where we blame our parents for every little flaw in our own character. It helped me understand more completely why my family must have left Ireland over 100 years ago.
They envisioned better for their family and made great sacrifices to see it happen.
It's easy to look back with great vision, it's hard to look forward with the same optimism when your hungry and poor.
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