Rating: 
Summary: Horrible...plz don't compare this book to Angela's Ashes
Review: This book frankly sucks. I had to read this book for a class but don't let that mislead you. This book was supposed to be as convincing as Angela's Ashes.
That is complete bs...and don't let anybody fool you. Angela's Ashes was a poignant memoir that was not only heartfelt but coherent and well-thought out.
While i read this book...i not only got confused why certain details were put in...but this lengthy banal book was most certainly the biggest waste of my time.
Ok...so it's sad yes that his siblings die...but at a literary perspective, those scenes were written in the most blase and bland way. There is nothing in this book that stands out and grabs you from the start.
Instead save yourself the trouble and read Angela's Ashes. Apparently the Irish theme in both books makes this far-from-masterpiece able to be compared to McCourt's novel? I don't think so...this rambling on of incoherent and DULL babbling does not even belong in the remote hemisphere literary-wise to any book that is remotely GOOD or interesting to read.
Save yourself the trouble...go fish or something.
Rating: 
Summary: Best Book I Ever Read
Review: I saw this book at my mothers house in Southie...(where I was born and raised) and once I picked it up I could not put it down - literally! Although a lot of people have different opinions and ideas about what happened - this is written from the author's perspective and who are we to say that it is "wrong".
My dad experienced many similar events in his life growing up in the D Street projects and maybe that is why I related to and loved this book so much. I recommend this book to anyone - from Massachusetts especially. I just ask that you keep an open mind when reading this. People seem to get defensive and want to "defend" Southie - but this does happen in Southie - whether or not you want to beleive it - it does. I love my hometown and I am proud of it as much as the next guy, but give this guy credit where credit is due!
EXCELLENT BOOK - I want to give the author a big hug after reading this book!
Rating:
Summary: All Souls
Review: My reactions relate not only to the reading "All Souls" but to other reviews of the work. I should state with clarity that I am familiar neither with the individuals in the book nor with the history of Southie. Yet MacDonald's book is vital to both the story of urban centers such as Boston but also to the untold story of white poverty in the United States. Books such as "All Souls" and more militant pieces such as "The Redneck Manifesto" (Jim Goad's brash and irreverent book) are important accounts of white poverty. MacDonald never portrayed his work as "a socio-cultural study of white poverty in an Urban Center in the Northeastern United States," but a personal account of his family's experiences. "All Souls" presents a good picture of the complexities of the real world - a family that was a picture of both dysfunction and resiliency, a community "code" that served both as its' strength and its' Achilles heal, and a person who journeyed through life trying to come to terms with these issues. Unaware of the accuracy of the "facts," the story of this family is an important addition to those who continually ignore the reality of the "white experience in America" - an experience, that for many, is not couched in race-based advantage. To dismiss an important piece of work such as this based on interpretation of facts or untold pieces of what is an enormously complex story misses the point. Mr. MacDonald, good job on starting an important discussion!
Rating: 
Summary: Haunting
Review: All Souls is the true story of a single mother and her large brood of children, growing up in the violent housing project of Old Colony. Old Colony is the impoverished, all-white projects located in South Boston, "Southie". Citizens there suffer from all the same problems plaguing all-black inner city neighborhoods--poverty, drugs, violence, guns, suicide--but live by a strict honor code which dictates that you don't "rat" on anyone. This code allows crimes to go unreported, unnoticed, unpunished and unattended. We learn about Southie through the author's firsthand account of his childhood in the projects. He lost four of his brothers to suicide, drugs, violence and poverty. Another of his siblings, his sister Kathy, was either pushed or jumped off the roof of the project during a fight over drugs, and lay in a coma for four months. Finally, his youngest brother, Stevie, witnesses his best friend's suicide at age 13 and was railroaded by a corrupt judicial system quick to pin the blame on anyone other than their own blatant shortcomings. Though deeply troubling, the account is not without humor and warmth. Helen King--"Ma"--plays the accordian in country bars, jogs in jeans and full makeup "to keep her figure", is rarely seen without her spike heels, and goes through a series of men and fathers. She is also a career welfare mother. Her strength in keeping her family together, and carrying on after the deaths of four of her children, is amazing. The author describes the mother's breaking point--going to her son's friend's confirmation one month and his funeral the next, all at the same church. With that, she packs the brood up to a trailer park in Colorado. One of the most powerful parts of the book to me was the author's description of his grandfather's funeral. "I couldn't figure out why I was so happy at a funeral," he writes, "Then I realized it was the first funeral I had ever been to where the person died naturally, of old age." This is a powerful tale of strength in the face of corruption, of everyday heroes in a world of cowards. It is also clearly about the author's love of his home. He regularly describes Southie as "the best place in the world" despite all the tragedy he endured there. His love/hate relationship with Old Colony and Southie transcend some rough writing and unpolished prose. An amazing story that I will not forget.
Rating: 
Summary: An autobiography of one families experience
Review: This is a story of racial intolerence and a generation lost to drugs, hate, and violence that were the fallout of the forced busing/integration years in south boston but in particular, old colony housing project. I was anxious to read this book since my grandmother and 3 families of cousins lived in this project and I too spent time there in the summers but the description I read was not the experiences of the people I knew that lived there. I hope that this book was cathartic for Michael McDonald and I am empathetic to his/families losses during the 80's. I believe some of the stories but feel others were embellished as I was acquainted with some of the characters. The take away although positive for him, is overall dismal for the residents of Old Colony...there is no balance or mention of those that did go to Catholic High Schools during the busing years, did have families that attended St. Augustines Church faithfully and did go on to pull themselves out of the projects and go on to college and meaningful jobs and houses in the suburbs. Indeed, those people lived there too but you would never know it reading this book. I had a great deal of ambivalence after reading it as I recognize the experience to be the authors perception of events as they were, but personally was able to see the good in the community spirit that abounded there. Often people that experience tragedy as a community are galvenized for change and that did happen there as well.
Rating:
Summary: "All Souls" has earned its place amid great non-fiction
Review: I almost didn't write a review of this book, because so many readers already have weighed in. Then I decided I liked the book too much to stay out of the discussion. I place "All Souls" among such other non-fiction masterpieces as "A Civil Action" and "The Informant." But unlike those works, which rely heavily on research and interviews, "All Souls" is all memoir. The author takes us through a tumultuous journey that leaves you wondering how the surviving characters in the story ever kept themselves from coming undone. MacDonald tells the story in a straight, neo-journalistic approach that at times makes the reader wonder if he was fully in touch with his emotions. But his emotional investment in the story and the internal tumult he clearly experienced as people around him were falling victim to drugs and guns seep through in the narration. Toward the last 50 pages or so, with the reader fully committed to MacDonald's journey, he succeeds in making the reader feel the rage he felt as the corruption and injustice he faced became too much to bear. All along, MacDonald never asks for pity by avoiding the easy pitfalls of pathos. He provides the narration and lets the facts of the story speak for themselves. If you feel pity and rage, you do so because the story is that compelling, not as a result of some attempt of the author's to trick you into it.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful
Review: All Souls is a book that I will never forget. It really made me think. Although it is a bit depressing it is a must read for everyone. At 263 pages I wanted to read everyone single one. I never got tired of this book. This is quite possibly the best book I have read in my life. BUY THIS BOOK!!
Rating:
Summary: If you lived in southie this book would be home
Review: Honestly i ave. a book a day and this is the best book i have ever read, hands down. Maybe because i already knew many of hte stories, lived on D Street on the corner of west facing the d street projects, am graduating from boston latin the story meant more to me. Maybe because im Irish, because i could have been reading about my friends and my family, and in come cases their parents, it meant more to me. Even so, anyone could read this and love it. It is an amazing story of hope, endurance and it has a beautiful hint of black humor, an mick's defense for pain. Thank you micheal. BOSTON IRISH!!!
Rating:
Summary: All SOULS
Review: This is the 2nd book I have read in at least 8 years. I am very close in age to the author 30 something, and could relate to the time line. It completely touched my (soul) and filled me with emotions I could never really place before. It brought to light how your enviorment can consume you as a young person, and how the people who live in the world of poverty, drugs, abandonment and corruption, are exactly that! PEOPLE! They love, hurt, live, hope, pray, and just do what they can to get by every day. The way anyone else does, however the one thing Southie has is PRIDE!
And a feeling that they are all in it together, Good or Bad. The Author of this story is a remarkable person, the way he looks at life is unexpected from this era. He is " The Seventh Son". And portrays the beauty of youth and the bond of sibilings in a way that deeply touches your heart. He shares how nothing can replace the feeling of home and family. And brings you to a new respect for his Ma, a determind woman who does the best she can with what she's been delt,will do anything for her children and does'nt take No for an answer. This book deserves all it can.
"Michael Patrick MacDonald, Keep'en it REAL!!"
Rating:
Summary: Thank you!
Review: I grew up in the suburbs but in a poor fatherless family myself, I am still living with the chaos of my older siblings tragic lives, a sad story, the funny thing about it is I am the youngest and luckily have survived it. A message to the author, THANK YOU! Your story made me laugh, made me cry and I felt a lot of nostalgia also, not living far from Southie, I actually went there from time to time in the late seventies. Michael, you are a brave soul, a survivor, I commend you for your book. I wish you all the success, you deserve it. Who knows, we may have even met at one time back in the days.
Joanne Peterson
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