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Summary: This family touches your heart...
Review: Frank McCourt is able to touch your heart and your soul by sharing his family tragedy with us. His family (yes, disfuntional) lived through hard times. But they were consoled by their belief in the church and in family. We all put too much stock in unworthy people at times, but when you are born into this life and it is either sink or swim, you learn to swim and to make do with the worst.
I have a special dislike of their father as he was a small and selfish man. But then again, it was a time when most of their country were "on the dole".....how were they to know different? At least the boys grew up and moved away from the poverty and made their lives back in America. I adore Frank McCourt's writing and hope he continues.
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Summary: This book is an excellent read!!!
Review: My girlfriend begged me to read this book and at first I was reluctant to read it. I read the first chapter and I couldn't believe this was a true story about someone's life. I read this book in one day and I can't believe how glued I was to this book! I normally like fantasy, sci-fi, philosophy or historical fiction. I was truely blown away about Frank Mccourt life and how he survived the depression especially in Ireland. This book was depressing and made me want to cry, I was hoping for a happy ending. Even though the ending wasn't what I expected it. It makes me want to read the next book. Great writing Mr Mccourt!!
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Summary: A Memoir with Everything
Review: Angela's Ashes, is the profound heart-warming autobiography of Frank McCourt, an Irish who describes the harsh conditions, which he was forced to grow up in. His story begins in the time of the Depression when he was born to his poor recent immigrant parents, Angela and Malachy in Brooklyn. Frank is brought up in a home with siblings that he is forced to take care of and watch die. He must be his mother's strength as she waits for her drunken husband to come home every night with out food. Little Frank continues to have hope as he travels to his parent's homeland of Ireland. As his dreams of a rich life in his new home diminish due to his father's continual drunkenness he finds optimism in his new siblings who he believes are brought to him by an Angel to the Seventh Step in his run down home, and through his father's tales of Cuchulian, who saved Ireland. Every week Angela is forced to beg to a council for food and clothing. Because of the overwhelming poverty in their small town Frank learns to live with shoes repaired with tires, a pig's head for Christmas dinner, and having to take two jobs to provide for his family.
This book is recommended because of the genius of Frank McCourt's writing. He is able to capture the essence of a poor Irishman's life with humor, satire, and strife, while at the same time telling a touching story. As he writes of his everyday life the accents and culture of the Irish can be felt. McCourt also brings out all emotions from laughing at his father who would make him and his brother wake up to tell his "Pride for Ireland" to crying as Malachy holds his dead daughter in his arms due to lack of medical attention. This book also opens eyes to the life of poverty, and the obstacles that are overcome. Before reading this account I was never aware of the struggles that people must go to if they do not have money. The fact that Angela was forced to get down on her hands and knees and had to beg for money to go to the doctor is preposterous. I was educated and my eyes were opened to a whole new world as I read the horrific details of having to live in solely the upstairs of the house because of flooding.
At the same time that this book was entertaining and heartfelt, it is incredibly depressing. Learning about the grim realities of Frank McCourt's childhood was extremely difficult. I often would have to put the book down because of the immense details we would get into about his life. For example, when his father finally got a job in England and was supposed to send money home. The whole family would wait by the door for the postman to come baring money. Day after day there would be no money. Reading about the hunger they were forced to go to because of a father's addiction, really stings the heart.
Angela's Ashes is the best portrayal of the difficult life uneducated poor people lead in order to survive, while at the same time providing insight into the Irish culture, and creating a moving, earnest story.
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Summary: Prize Potato
Review: I thought this was going to be a good read after all it won the Pulitzer Prize and every other person on the underground has been reading it. Don't get me wrong it was a good read, but what I didn't know was it would ruin my diet. I developed a strange craving for mashed potato and soft-boiled eggs, which are usually two of my least favourite foods. But did it make me want to revert to Catholicism? With all those Priests slamming doors - not a chance! I'll carry on practicing my Pagan beliefs and wish Frank McCourt well-healed shoes and all the boiled eggs and mashed potatoes he can eat.
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Summary: Can starvation be made humorous?
Review: I will be absolutely frank (no pun intended) here and let you know this was a difficult read for me. The memoirs of Frank McCourt were so devastating that I simply wanted to put it down and never remember that I had ever heard of it. So why did I continue to read it? It is beautifully written and I had such hopes that these children who knew nothing but starvation, death, chilled bones, bed bugs, and tragedy from the day they were a seed in their mothers womb, could find a bit of joy and happiness in their lives. And as Frank McCourt shared his dreary childhood with me through this novel, he added lots of humor. I found myself smiling when I knew I should have been weeping. Without this humor, I don't know if I could have read about the alcholic father that worked all week only to take his money and spend it at the pub getting drunk while the children and his wife were home with no food, having to beg neighbors and strangers for something to eat. Without McCourts humor I don't think I could read about how the children were beat and belittled by their teachers as well as other children in the name of learning. Without a bit of humor I couldn't have forged on through the shameful treatment in the name of God that was dumped on this family by the church. When I think about the life of these children and this family I guess without a few laughs in their lives they wouldn't have made it through their lives either. So I guess you are wondering if I recommend this book...yes. Why, because this book is life. Maybe not your life, and maybe not my life, but sometimes we need to know what other people have went through, and are going through to know.... my life isn't as bad as I thought!
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Summary: Angela's Ashes
Review: I started out reading this book and became somewhat bored with it. I would read a little and set it down for quite sometime before picking it up again. I thought it was slow and although it was interesting, I couldn't stay with it. Once I had read it half-way, I started to really get attached to little Frankie McCourt. I found it amusing and painful at the same time... Towards the end I could not put it down, and the ending wraps up nicely. Looking back, I enjoyed this book far more than anticipated.
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Summary: McCourt's Masterpiece
Review: As a high school teacher and a published novelist (my debut book is in its initial release), I understandably found myself attracted to ANGELA'S ASHES by Frank McCourt, himself an educator and an author. In ANGELA'S ASHES, Mr. McCourt recounts the struggles of his youth in Ireland, his battles against poverty, and his desires for a better life. ANGELA'S ASHES is an inspiring book that is beautifully written. I recommend it highly to everyone.
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Summary: UNBELIEVABLE , TRULY UNBELIEVABLE
Review: I AGREE WITH DIANE SCHIRF , THIS IS A REAL WORK OF FICTION. ITS AN INSULT TO THE POOR, THE IRISH, TO REAL MOTHERS EVERYWHERE, AND TO THE READER WHO IS SUPPOSED TO BELIEVE ALL THIS GUFF. ITS LIKE A COMPILATION OF ALL THE WORST HUMAN BEHAVIOR IN THE WORLD, EXCEPT FOR THE SUBJECT WHO OBVIOUSLY IS A BABE MAGNET AND PHYSICAL WONDER FOR SURVIVING. FIRST I WAS ANGRY AND WANTED TO THROW IT AGAINST THE WALL , BUT THEN IT BECAME RIDICULOUS AND COMICAL.I KEPT READING IT ONLY BECAUSE I THOUGHT IT HAD TO GET BETTER, P PRIZE AND ALL. I GUESS HIS IMAGINATION WAS NOT STARVED. HOW MANY WOMEN SWAM OUT TO MEET THE BOAT ????
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Summary: Couldn't stop reading
Review: Frank McCourt did a wonderful job bring his readers back to his tragic childhood in Ireland. Poverty was something that his family struggled with and it did not help the situation as his father was a hard-core alcoholic who prefers to spend his dole money on drinks even though his family is barely surviving. McCourt also had to deal with the deaths of his sibblings due to improper care and lack of food. I like this book a lot because it makes us think of how fortunate we are, to have food, loved ones and at times, we don't appreciate what we have. This book also gives a good perspective of how difficult times were after the Great Depression and how World War II were able to provide jobs for a lot of people and helped to boost the economy. I think this book is quite funny too besides the problems faced by the McCourts. The author did a great job in observing his surroundings and also find humors in difficult times.
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Summary: Mother's love
Review: This is a marvellous book. I received it as a gift from my friend. I read the first sentence, and suddenly I was captured in one adventure, full of emotion. Frank McCourt really could make the reader visualize the situation at that time, though we understand nothing about Irish history. Nothing about the Great Famine, nothing about the conflict between Catholic and Protestant, nothing about its culture and perspective. We can start from zero, and understand a half of Irish history and culture. This is a very good autobiography. We are trapped in his feeling, a child's view, a child's emotion seeing his mother struggle to live and to earn living for her children amongst the death and the living. A child's perspective toward his brothers' and sister's deaths. A child's acceptance toward a hard life. I don't wonder that this book could receive a pulitzer.
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