ANGELA'S ASHES

Rating:
Summary: Simply a masterpiece.
Review: A haunting, heartbreaking, hilarious masterpiece. I loved this book as much as any I have ever read. Brilliant!

Rating:
Summary: Tragic, poignant, hysterical; all in one memoir.
Review: My wife read this first; she is of Dutch descent, and I am Irish-American. My wife thought the book to be extremely tragic and sad. I, on the other hand, being a New York Mick, took it for what it is; sometimes tragic, sometimes hilarious, always to the point. McCourt may not use proper grammar and punctuation, but he certainly can depict a childhood full of deprivation, neglect, optimism, and wonder. Hats off to a man who survived a depression-era Irish childhood and went on to a fine teaching career at New York City's finest public high school.

Rating:
Summary: Story that needed to be told, but in a better way.
Review: I read this book because everyone I knew was raving about it. I had to force myself to read it. It was a heart-breaking story, but it was SO hard to endure the way in which the story was told. I found the style choppy and completely lacking in flow. I had the feeling that the story was told from a distant stance - which well may have been the case.

Rating:
Summary: Harrowing and haunting yet heartbreakingly funny
Review: Harrowing and haunting yet heartbreakingly funny in its use of language

Rating:
Summary: A very unique journey into one family's hell
Review: This book is truly a masterpiece. Being of Irish descent, I must say that I have never read a more stark and horrifying (yet darkly humorous) account of the plight of Ireland's masses. I have made it a personal crusade to recommend this book to as many of my friends as possible.

Rating:
Summary: An American Classic
Review: I realize that an American classic should, at a minimum, be set in America, and, ideally, authored by an American writer. Angela's Ashes, however, is more American than anything I have read in a long time. The exploration of the social impact on the history of the United States of childhoods like that of Frank's would make a great topic for a book... Amazing book, NOT for the weak of heart. You should not read this book for entertainment, but for enlightment....

Rating:
Summary: A great Irish book
Review: This book is shocking and wonderful. It's amazing that the family survived in those conditions. It was really sad when the brothers and the sister died. I heard that Mr. McCourt is writing another book about his life.

Rating:
Summary: Engrossing, amusing, upsetting, unsettling...an experience
Review: I am an avid reader of non-fiction and find this book to be the most haunting story I have ever experienced. I had an emotional roller coaster of reactions to every line I read. Being of Irish/Catholic descent I recognized the tragedy of alcoholism and the "old school" tactics of the Catholic Church. I was tormented by the plight of his mother and the children starving, living in vermin, and still the father (like so many men in their circumstances) takes the "dole" money to drown out all feeling. Mr. McCourt describes the settings, the essence of the people involved with such vividness that I can put myself right in the story. He filled my 5 senses with all the smells, tastes, sights, sounds, and sensations of his home on the lane that I am experiencing the nausea, the hopelessness and the empty growling stomach. His mother grasping to the continual hope that her husband will share the reality of relentless poverty and him always escaping in pubs, daydreams, and finally abandoning them for a job in England fills the reader with unbearable frustration. I was shocked to see the unfairness of the male dominated world in our century's beginning both in America where the story begins and into Ireland where most of his childhood was spent. All Americans should read this account and they would see how much they take for granted. I hope there is a sequel to this book. Mr. McCourt, I want to know what happened to Angela, Malachy, and everyone else. He exemplifies the talents of a good writer by making the reader want more and more.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderfully!Pasionate!
Review: This book is a true story about Frank McCourts childhood.It's amazing what he went through as a child most of his sibilings died, and he was poverty stricken. It makes you relize how tough life can treat you.

Rating:
Summary: A very interesting, provocative story of McCourt's childhood
Review: It was a good book. McCourt really has a gem on his hands here. An honest, hard-hitting, provocative account of growing up in poor Ireland. It doesn't really spare much in terms of reality, which means that it's a truly excellent book - a must read.