Rating: 
Summary: Close to home but miles away....
Review: I throughly enjoyed this book. It was the third choice of our newly established book club and loved by all. I grew up in Reading Massachusetts just 13 miles north of Boston and remember the busing issues from a completely sheltered viewpoint. The part of Mike's story, however, that really "made me think" was the references to Illusions, the under eighteen drinking club, in Kenmore Square. Almost every weekend of my Sophmore year, my girlfriends and I would get ride from our parents into the city to this dance club. There, we met many a boy from Southie, who we all loved to dance with and spend time talking to. We all agreed that we thought the "Southie guys" were the best dressed in their "preppie" outfits, polo shirts(collar up),nice pants and shoes. Never in my wildest suburban dreams did I think these boys had drugs, let alone a gun!!!!! I highly recommend this book to all ages and feel it is a must read by all who grew up in the Boston area. I applaude Michael MacDonald and look forward to more of his work.
Rating:
Summary: Great read
Review: My words may not be eloquent enough for review writing, but this book is a must read.
MacDonald lets you right into his heart, and shows his life, with all of its tragedies and triumphs, in a straight forward, no holds barred style. You will laugh and cry right along with him, as he tells his story of growing up in the projects of South Boston. This story is so moving, and so powerful, you will feel as if you are right along side him as the story unfolds, to the point that you want to just give him a big hug. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has a heart, anyone who has ever lost a family member, or even just anyone who ever loved their mother. A great read.
Rating:
Summary: ALL SOULS: A FAMILY STORY FROM SOUTHIE
Review: This superior narrative is second only to Frank McCourt's books,
not in style, but in the trials and tribulations of the poor
Irish living in a ghetto offering no escape. It is an excellent
read, fast paced, frustrating to the reader who continually hopes
page after page that there is an escape to a better world for
people who have endured heartbraking hardships. I found it to be educational,enlightening, heartwarming, sad and actually running the gamut of all emotions. This was a one day can't put it down
read.
Rating:
Summary: Not as entertaining as Angela's Ashes -- but more important.
Review: I bought this book on a whim, hoping for something similar to AngelaÕs Ashes. What I got was, in many ways, even better. To be honest, All Souls is not nearly as entertaining as AngelaÕs Ashes. While the book has more than its share of both tragedy and humor, Michael Patrick McDonald lacks Frank McCourtÕs genius for making you laugh and cry at the same time. But in the end, McDonaldÕs inability to turn poverty into entertainment is this bookÕs strongest virtue. AngelaÕs Ashes is a great story told by a great storyteller. All Souls is both a great story and an important, thought-provoking book.The books are similar in that both are about poor Irish families, but All Souls deals with Irish-American poverty in Boston in the sixties and seventies, when its author was a child. McDonald paints a moving (and sometimes humorous) portrait of people living with all the consequences of poverty that afflict so many urban minority communities Ð poor schools, crime, lousy police protection, lack of government services, welfare dependency, drugs and alcohol, etc. But McDonaldÕs family and neighbors also suffer from another, self-inflicted wound Ð that terrible Irish ability to laugh off or deny the tragedies that are right in front of their eyes. These are people who watch their children drop out of school, fall into crime and drugs, and, all too often, die, and yet continue to buy stolen designer clothes so they can dress up and convince themselves they are not poor, and insist that they live in "the best place in the world." It is only as a adult, after working with activists in neighboring black and Hispanic communities, that McDonald begins to realize that his white neighborhood is just as afflicted with the consequences of poverty as the minority neighborhoods that surround it. His family faced most of the same problems that African-American families in nearby Roxbury faced, but in Roxbury people dealt with those problems more honestly and more effectively. McDonald, raised on SouthieÕs infamous racism, realizes that he has a lot to learn from people he was taught to look down upon. I love this book for many reasons. One is that it explodes the myth of the Irish as the successful, happy-go-lucky, and perfectly assimilated ethnic group, whose example is often used to put down other ethnic groups. (If the Irish made it, why canÕt you?) Several Southie residents have written reviews here testifying to the honesty and accuracy of McDonaldÕs portrait of BostonÕs lower class Irish-Americans. IÕm a decade older than McDonald and spent much of my childhood in an Irish immigrant community in New York, not Boston, but I was amazed by how much I could identify with in this book. Because of our age difference, I was never exposed to the drugs and crime that McDonald was, thank God, but that Irish need to put on a show and pretend that poverty doesnÕt exist (or laugh it off) was so familiar to me that at times it hurt to read this book. Our "gift" for finding the humor in tragedy, which so charms outsiders (witness the phenomenal success of McCourtÕs book Ð most of his readers were not Irish), can be a curse to us Ð permitting us to endure what ought to be fought, and masking an inner anger that shows up in disproportionately high rates of alcoholism and domestic violence. McDonald deserves high praise for being brave enough to draw attention to this. Another myth that McDonald explodes is the idea that there are no class differences in the United States. WeÕll reluctantly acknowledge a racial divide, but not a class divide. But the truth is, while the lower class is disproportionately black, it is predominantly white. And framing our problems in racial terms separates us where we should be united. The racism of poor whites Ð which McDonald devotes a lot of time to in this book Ð hurts not only blacks, but also whites, because it keeps them from realizing that they arenÕt alone, that they have a lot in common with other poor people. That McDonald was able to see his familyÕs poverty clearly after working with poor African-Americans gives me hope. When I was in college, I began to figure out, from conversations with a number of African-American women, that poverty was more a curse than a shame. I will always be grateful to them for that insight. I was happy to see McDonald shared my experience. I wish it was an experience more people had. I like memoirs and read quite a few of them, but most memoirs give you, at best, a small insight into another personÕs life, a chance to walk around in someone elseÕs shoes. ThatÕs a valuable experience, but I think this book goes beyond that. McDonald has dealt openly and honestly with issues of class and race ( he is up front even about his own familyÕs racism Ð which takes guts to write about). These are issues we are always trying to sweep under the rug in America. I wish this book would get a wide, wide audience and open up a long-needed discussion.
Rating:
Summary: Poverty, not skin collor creates ghettoes
Review: This is an outstanding book that should be read by everyone who wants to understand how urban ghettoes can continue to exist. The working poor and welfare families in this book are virtually all white and all engaged in the pathological behavior that we generally associate with poverty-ridden minority communities.
Rating:
Summary: Hell no, we won't go...
Review: Michael McDonald's ability to tell a story - to observe the goings-on around him with the cold detachment of a brilliant narrator at the same time he was an actor in the drama that was unfolding between and among his family and friends - is simply breath-taking. His writing is so clear, so real and so immediate that you feel the heat, the energy and the pain of the streets of South Boston from beginning to end. While I have lived in Massachusetts for most of my life and have some appreciation for the larger events that were unfolding throughout the course of Michael's book, he brings it all home with an eye for detail and an appreciation for what was happening on the ground that is astonishing. His observations about and real-life experiences with cops, forced busing, drugs, welfare, racism, classism, corruption and poverty are eye-opening, to say the least. This book will move you no matter where you live or how old you are. It is heart-felt, beautifully constructed, and - in many ways - a tale for all times. It is a classic tale about one family's life in urban America during the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. I am sure it will become a "must-read" in high school and college classrooms across the country.
Rating:
Summary: Rising above it all
Review: Through his ability to tell a story MacDonald tranforms the reader into being a proud neighbor in Southie. Even if you would never think it possible to relate to these people who have an enormous amount of ethnic pride and no shame in the way that they conduct their lives, you find yourself hoping that they will rise above all that has been thrown at them. I never realized that the issue of bussing was not about racism rather about losing pride and the connection in the community. This book is an incredible account of recent history and the entire city of Boston should be greatful that MacDonald has recorded the story of events and of a people that finally decided to put an end to the violence.
Rating:
Summary: All Souls... a must read if your from Boston
Review: This is the greatest book that I have read in a long time! This book gives great history and insight to people who either weren't alive at the time (like me) or just not aware of what was going on. I drive through Southie a least 3 times a week and it's amazes me how this city can have so many secrets that have been hidden through generations. Micheals writing comes off as sometimes innocent in such a world that was anything but. Being from the area I feel like I have learned so much more about where I am from just by reading this book. My mom who was part of this when she was a teen tells me how it was and how accurate Micheal was in his memoirs and how when she read it, it brought back old feelings that outlined her childhood. I loved this book and I highly recommend it to anyone from Boston who wants to know more about where they came from.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting, but depressing.
Review: It's an interesting story that weaves you into the author's childhood, growing up in Southie. For those who like to read about recent history and local politics, it's a worthwhile read. But it should be duly noted that this is not an uplifting tale. There are times I wanted to reach into the pages and rattle some sense into some of the characters. And there were several times when I almost put it aside unfinished simply because I wanted a story that wasn't so dark. In summary - a good tale, but it leaves you with a heavy heart.
Rating:
Summary: must read
Review: This book is a must read for anyone who grew up in the Boston area in the 70's and 80's.
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