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Summary: Angela's Ashes
Review: The book Angela' Ashes is about an Irish family who traveled back to Ireland, after living in the ghetto in New York.They moved back to Ireland expecting a better life than in New York. Life wasn't a whole lot better in Ireland. His dad was still an alcoholic. He was still spending all of the family's money on beer. So the dad was drunk, and the family was starving.This book also talks about all of the problems they faced in Ireland and New York. Frank tells it all. He is very graghic with his descriptions. He makes you visualize the setting in which the story takes place.This book is a sad story. The thing that makes it worse is that this is a true story. Frank McCourt actually lived through it. This book reveals the true horrers of living in the ghetto, and the poor country of Ireland. This book catches your attention and dosn't let go. Once I started to read, I could not stop. Thats how interesting this book is.
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Summary: A Tale of Survival
Review: Angela's Ashes is a very heartwrenching story. Born to a drunken father and a desperate mother, Frank learns at a young age to be the man of the family, caring for them in any way he can. When Frank is about ten, his father goes off to England in order to work a good job and send money home. What he actually does is drink away every penny of his earnings leaving his family of five to starve in the streets of Ireland. He never does return and Frank works doing anything he can find in order to feed his four brothers and mother. With each paycheck, however, he saves a bit to go to America where he imagines all of his worries will be over. It is a world most of us can hardly imagine, constantly consumed with hunger, never knowing how the rent will be paid or food provided for the next day. To have survived a childhood like this one, Frank McCourt must be an extraordinary man. To have written such a memoir, McCourt must be an even more impressive mind and soul. I look forward to picking up "Tis."
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Summary: A gripping novel from start to finish
Review: Brilliant. The book consists of Irish racisim ("no one in the family spoke to Tom's wife because she was from Galway and had the look of the Spaniard about her"), alcholism ("the curse of the Irish"), poverty and a childs innocence. Mixed together you have a book that conjures all sorts of emotions as you read, from anger to joy.As I was reading the book, I found myself thinking back on all the stories my ma use to tell me about her growing up in Dublin. How she never had two pennies to rub together, how they were poor and she had to go out and work at an early age. I use to dismiss these stories and her comments about how lucky we are these days, but now I find that I am more appreciative of what I have. Buy this book, read it, believe it. It's one to keep.
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Summary: A triumph!
Review: Is there anything better than Frank McCourt's book, ANGELA'S ASHES? ***YES! *** Frank McCourt reading ANGELA'S ASHES. Every syllable he speaks says "Ireland". McCourt's voice is that of a master story-teller. He intones every humorous tale, every tragic account as only the man and boy who lived through all of it could. Buy this audio book! When you're done listening to it, lend it to all your friends. You'll never regret it!
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Summary: You have to "get" it
Review: I have to say that the only way one wouldn't love this book is if they grew up with Mike and Carol Brady and then had their soul stolen from them. I think the brilliance of this book is the narrative in which it is written. You hear his voice in every sentence, you hear him as he spoke in whatever stage of his life he was in. People were like he described, people lived like he described, children suffered like he did. The fact that this man came out alive and smiling is purely a miracle. Buy it at once and then buy 'Tis. Afterwards, write Frank and beg him for more!
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Summary: Good, humorous reading
Review: I liked this book because I thought that it was light and humorous. It put some serious events in a comical light and his writing is bright and vivid. However, some of the colloquial writing was hard to follow.
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Summary: Wonderful
Review: I adored this novel. Frank McCourt is not only a wonderful writer, but an honest one as well. Many other reviewers have said that they know Irish people who didn't grow up this way, so therefore McCourt must be imagining all the poverty of his childhood. Well, just because your buddy is Irish doesn't mean that he knows about Limerick. Everyone in Ireland didn't grow up in the same place, there is variation in every country. There are people in New York living in penthouses, and just a few blocks away people living in cardboard boxes. At the beginning of the 20th century Ireland was a poor country, and he happened to grow up in one of the most poverty-stricken districts of it. Just because his life was so different from your own doesn't mean that he fabricated this entire tale. Of course some of the story would be filled in in places, no one can remember their childhood with complete clarity. The fact is that I beleive this novel to be true because McCourt was so honest. He shared his feelings and thoughts, most of the time thoughts that you would never admit to having. His story telling style is unique, the lack of quotations is confusing a bit at first, but if you are an intelligent person, you soon get over it. He made you feel his conflicting emotions of anger at his father for wasting his paycheck, and his intense admiration of him as well. I don't believe that this novel is reinforcing bad stereotypes about the Irish people. It is portraying, rather, their ability to survive, and make a living in an unimaginable situation. It is a testament to the strength of the Irish people, as well as their weaknesses. I highly recommend this novel to anyone who would like to see how those less fortunate live, written in honesty, intelligence, and remarkable humor.
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Summary: A stunning accomplishment
Review: This book not only touched the Irish blood that runs in my veins, but touched everything human about me. Whether it's watching in horror as Frankie's siblings die, or smiling as he breaks free, this book made me think, made me feel.
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Summary: On The Edge Of My Chair
Review: This book is one of my favorite's . The book is about a family that goes through Irish hard ships. The main character in this story is a little boy and his brother Malachy. This family finds that they can't make it in America so they move to Ireland.They also face many deaths within the family. They also have battled many sicknesses including typhoid fever. I liked that there was always new problems arising. Yet there were the problems that hung over the there heads the whole book. This book was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize. Overall I think this was the best book I've ever seen.
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Summary: Angela's Ashes
Review: This book was interesting in a horrifying way. It's a book that you can't put down, yet it's very depressing. AA is a story of love, poverty, hunger, alcoholism, faith, religion, and social structure. It is very touching and at times infuriating. It is absolutely heartbreaking to think of children suffering, and that is a huge chunk of this book. As sorry as I felt for the McCourt children, I felt even sorrier for Frank's childhood friend Paddy who had never tried a sandwitch and pronounced it "sandwidge." Paddy's mispronouncing that word is a perfect example of the way AA makes you feel: Bittersweet.
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