ANGELA'S ASHES

Rating:
Summary: Great for me and my teen
Review: I have been reading to my daughter since she could breath, and we continue to read together at night before lights-out with one change. She now reads to me. Angela's Ashes is by far one of the best books we have read, tieing with The Little Prince as our favorite. Frank McCourt's writting style comes to life when read out-loud. The style is fresh, and unique.

My daughter enjoyed the story perspective of a young boy, and we both found ourselves laughing at the colorful situations that young Frankie paints. Angels leaving babies on the 5th step of stairs; and children awoken from their sleep to vow to die for Ireland, while their father lines them up like soldiers...remembering his own youth through the haze of too much alcohol, are just two of many of the sweet times of Frankie.

I have heard that many find the book sad, or boring. We can't believe those comments about this story. We found Frank to never miss the humor of a dismal situation. We came to love the characters, and the style of writting that lent to the intimacy and viewpoint.

Frankie honors the memory of his mother and father with this story. Dispite the parents' inability to do better for themselves and their children, Frankie writes about them with love.

Mr. McCourt, if you read this, my daughter wants you to get busy and finish the story that picks up after Frank gets to New York as a young man. She wonders if you could maybe write faster!

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely brilliant!
Review: This is one of the best books I have ever read--a true triumph of the human spirit. It's remarkable that Frank McCourt could tell the tragic story of his childhood with love, humor and creativity intact. I found myself unable to put this book down, and was still touched by the book and the people in it long after I finished it. Frank McCourt is generous in sharing with all of us such personal and grippingly honest details of his life. I'll be one of the first to buy the sequel!

Rating:
Summary: The wonder years
Review: A piece of art that not only takes you through the authors' childhood, it has the uncanny ability of taking you through yours as well.He is so brilliant in his ability to recount his past, it's hard to believe it's not a piece of fiction. Funny, frightening, bewildered, happy, wonderful... Oh to be a child again!

Rating:
Summary: Angela's Ashes: A Review
Review: I read Angela's Ashes just recently for a Research Writing class, and I was relieved to find McCourt's account so enlightening. Although his life was full of pain and saddness, he never let it get him down. I read the book teary-eyed, laughing and into deep thoughts. I recommend this book to those who are willing to put themselves into another's hands, for a while, as they read "Angela's Ashes".

Rating:
Summary: A lesson in discretion
Review: I found Angela's Ashes to be boring. It droned on with the depressing and shocking accounts of Frank McCourt's childhood. There were so many of his experiences that could have been left out. I do not need to read about his first sexual experiences (both with himself and others). I kept reading this book, and hating to see that I still had so far to go. This book was a chore to read and a disgrace to the McCourt family. The world does not need to know that Angela McCourt slept with her cousin. I also do not like the fact that Frank McCourt is getting such praise for abandoning his family and stealing from so many people. I also found that this was 400 pages of little punctuation. Please Mr. McCourt, learn how to use a comma! My last major fault with this book: Frank McCourt is a wonder to science. To be 70 years old and have such a detailed account of his earliest years, let's just say that you are a miracle Mr. McCourt. Still, this was a good attempt. If the author could have done a little more editing and left out a few things, this would have been a decent book. This was, however, far from Pulitzer quality.

Rating:
Summary: A Lesson in survival - truly superb
Review: It happened by chance - a total stranger came up and said - read it, really humourous and good. Yet - browsing through the first few pages - I thought it was more sad than humourous. Yet, I was hooked with the simplicity of the language and the lack of over-play of emotion in the words. I was delighted in the book - took me less than 2 days to devour cover to cover. I will be hard-pressed to find another memoir so superb. I wish and hope Frank McCourt will write a sequel - I want to know more of his life and the way he has coped with it.

Rating:
Summary: He said it without saying it
Review: Frank McCourt has a keen ability to portray a situation in all its depth without rubbing the reader's face in it. We understand the (adult) narrator's views on what was happening without him leading us at every corner. This is because he presents the situation so that we feel what he felt, we see the victimization. Angela's Ashes is a tear-jerking memoir frought with satire and humor. It will push and pull at your emotions. I never learned so much from a child. Thanks young Frankie!

Rating:
Summary: Definitely engrossing!! I wanted it to go on and on!!!
Review: This book was one of the most interesting books that I have ever read. I've always complained about my "impoverished" childhood, but when I read about Mr. McCourt's life I found that America's defintion of poverty is misrepresented. Were not impoverished, we just aren't flourishing in wealth. We have Health and Welfare that are given to us without disrespect to economical conditions or consideration to our cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Frank McCourt's book is excellent and I tremedously enjoyed the usage of an adolescence voice as opposed to a well-developed, superfluous tone, much like the one being used now. Aside from learning about the cultures, traditions and "requirements" of a true Catholic-Irishman, my favorite was the end. McCourt had dreamt of going to America and having sex with blonde-haired American women with straight teeth. And when he arrives in America his first experience was a sexual encounter with an American women despite the fact that the priest was in full knowledge of his acts. This denoted the spur of McCourt's new life in America, free from the priesthood and the deprivating life of Irish Catholicism. I would love to read a novel describing Mr. McCourt's life here in America. I'm sure that this would be just as interesting as his life in the slums of Limerick.

Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable, though a bit redundant
Review: Angela's could easily become one of the best autobiography that I have ever read, but having read Wild Swans by Jung Chang before, make Angela Ash a bit inferior. Can you recall, how many time did Mr. Mc Court told about he and Malacy was forced to sing and die for Ireland? In the end, the story really make me feel about the struggle and humiliation of living under poverty.

Rating:
Summary: HOW TO LAUGH AND CRY AT THE SAME TIME
Review: Wonderfully moving book that makes you finally appreciate the old line "there is always someone worse of than yourself". Which McCourt proves as whilst relaying his own dire curcumstances he can still point out others who were in sorrier shape. A tragic comedy that highlights how adaptable and resilient the human spirit is. I couldn't put it down and literally found myself laughing through the tears.