ANGELA'S ASHES

Rating:
Summary: Ten stars. Laugh thru your tears
Review: I have friends who found it impossible to finish Angela's Ashes because they found it relentlessly depressing with its heavy themes of aching poverty, absent drunken loving father and long-suffering mother - classic themes, it seems, in Irish literature.
But in spite of the truth of those parts of the story, it's impossible to finish this book without feeling a sense of triumph for the human spirit, even when surrounded by the realities of McCourt's Irish childhood and young adolescence.
It works, I think, because he writes the entire book in the child's voice - not an easy task to pull off, but he succeeded. And a child, of course, doesn't have much against which to hold up his own life; it's all he knows. So McCourt never comes across as sounding whiney, bitter, jealous, or put-upon.
Scene after hilarious scene is interspersed with real heartbreaking and harrowing and demeaning eqisodes, but the overall feeling I was left with was joy.

Rating:
Summary: Enthralling Hardship
Review: Frank McCourts ANGELA'S ASHES relays the adolescent hardships of a poverty-stricken life. This novel serves to portray the aggravation of an alcoholic father who spends the little money the family has on alcohol, and ultimately leaves the family completely penniless. An underlying idea of the novel shows the satiric view of the Roman Catholic Church in which McCourt was raised. Throughout McCourt's lifelong struggle to save enough money to return to America, he faces many and is confronted with many problems in his everyday life. The novel brings to life the inhumanity of the life lived in poverty, with the natrual regularity of death and disease, and the despair of having to steal for food to live. McCourt adequately relates his views of the difference between classes, his view of pompous Irish schoolmasters, and his idealistic view of America. This is a heartening yet sometimes depressing read that allows the reader to relate to the overall strife of human existence, and shows the extraordinary will to succeed of a young boy trying to overcome his circumstances with dignity and character. McCourt's novel is inspiring, though-provoking, and heart-felt. This novel is a must-read. It is a literary jewel.

Rating:
Summary: Angela's Ashes
Review: It's a miracle Frank McCourt survived all the tragedies of his upbringings to compose the story, Angela's Ashes. The memoir of his oppressed childhood demonstrated that life should not be taken for granted, the negligible things deserve appreciation. The story was vividly written making the reader able to emotionally feel the experiences of his misfortunate childhood. Born in Brooklyn he was the eldest of seven children, though only four reached the age of three. As the family moves from New York to Ireland in hopes of a more prosperous future the situations continually deteriorate. Living off the dole with random employment the family has just enough to barely stay alive. Poverty drives Angela to accept charity from the Saint Vincent De Paul Society while Malachy's addictive drinking habit nearly destroys the McCourt's. Frank related illnesses that occurred on his first communion and confirmation as bad omens and he hated carrying the sins of life upon his shoulders. This brought him to the assumption that the worse scenario of life was being brought up as an Irish Catholic boy. In Conclusion, Angela's Ashes was a realistic recollection of what life in Ireland was like for the poverty stricken population in the 1940's. It was a well written book yet very depressing to read how anyone could have survived under these conditions.

Rating:
Summary: Angela's Ashes
Review: Angela's Ashes, by Frank McCourt, is the story of an Irish Cathloic boy born in the United States who learns to adapt to the poverty stricken town of Limerick. Frank vividly recaps the disturbing events of his childhood, while keeping the reader hopeful right up to the last page. Although Frank has to take on the man of the house role, while his father drinks himself stupid, his determined will to survive pervails. This memoir is narrated in the first person by a young Frank who uses blunt language and childish syntax. After reading this book you will feel like you can overcome any obstacle you experience with a smile on your face.

Rating:
Summary: A Five Star Book
Review: I am a teen, and when It come to reading I want to run and hide. My English teacher wanted us to do a book report. I looked for days,for just the right book,Then I saw it. The cover caught my attention, It looked so good, that I had to give it a try. From then on I couldn't put it down, I thought my childhood was rough. I love how Frank has both sad and humorous.You will cry and laugh out loud. I recommended it to all my friends and they are telling theres. I can't wait to read Tis. 5 stars, I love it!!!

Rating:
Summary: Tragically Profound
Review: Frank McCourt's bibliography sends you on a trip through the stuggles and hardships of living in Ireland during the 1940's. Although McCourt's life is difficult, he persevers through it all and returns to America, where he was born. His life begins in New York in a small apartment with younger siblings, Frank being the oldest. From the moment he is born, life is a struggle. Food and money are always short in the McCourt household due to an alcoholic father. Yelling and drunken scenes further pollute the desolate life. Starvation kills Frank's family one by one because his father cannot get a job and when he does get jobs he is immediately fired due to drinking. The family decides to move back to Ireland, beleiving that jobs are more available, but things actually become worse. Although they move continents, his father still has a drinking problem and his mother and father both develop a smoking problem.Jobs are not readily available and Mr.McCourt cannot seem to keep one. Money that should go to food from charitiesis used for liquor and cigarettes, which leads to more death. Mrs.McCourt's family outcasts the Americanized family and doesn't help much, putting the blame on Angela for marrying a north Irish man and moving to America at age 18 in search of a better life than he has ultimately lived. In conclusion, i enjoyed the book but was greatly saddened by the explicit detail of depression that grows from poverty and neglect.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely sensational and full of comical bluntness
Review: In the novel, Angela's Ashes, by Frank McCourt, he personally gives his own accounts of poverty in the uptown area of New York and then in Limerick, Ireland. This story of family life through struggles brings out the worst aspects of life, along with the miraculous times. The novel goes from the flooding of their house, rats,lice, lavatory, and absolutely gross living conditions of the lowest class to the beauty of close family connections, open bluntness, and ultimate love. I for one, extremely enjoy the breaks in the novel where Mr. McCourt takes a hardship and turns it into something the audience can relate to and laugh about. In the case when the boys are starving of hunger at lunch time, the author could have sympathized with the boys, but instead he makes them go out to the country side orchards, eat apples, and then has a hilarious account on how the young men had to go to opposite ends to use the restroom with leaves as toilet paper.I personally love the sickening and vile stories, they make my stomach turn, but put a smile to my face. Not only do I adore this in the book, but I really enjoyed the development of characters through concrete detail, especially Malachy McCourt, the father. Much of the audience could see the father as the antagonist, since he continues to bring the family down to the worst of circumstances time and time again from his horrible drinking habits and lack of good intuition over responsible parenting, but I find myself having all kinds of sympathies and unique likenesses of him. Mr. Malachy, even though, he may totally abolish and destroy the families hopes at certain instances he always does little gestures that show his kind, sincere character of caring. In such cases, when he never eats his dinner for more to be leftover for the children and wife, or when he gives the boys pennies time to time for saying they will die for Ireland, or when he makes up different stories to tell Frank in the mornings. In all, the novel was one of kind, full of diverse complexities of bluntness and struggle. I would definitely read this novel a million times over again, and I do not read much!!!

Rating:
Summary: Tragedy, Sorrow, and Fish and Chips
Review: Frank McCourt's autobiography, Angela's Ashes, of his difficult Irish childhood is a stunning memoir of hardship, death, and love. McCourt beautifully recounts his ordeals of growing up Irish, Catholic, and poor and the problems he faced along the way. Through simple diction, but superb imagery, McCourt shares with the reader the problems of growing up in the slums of New York, but the reader finds out those problems get even worse when the McCourt family moves back to Ireland. Even in the first 10 pages, McCourt makes apparent the racism and stereotypes in the early 20th centruy that still exist today in society. Most importantly, the application of real world problems of one boy let the reader relate those experiences to everyday life. This book is the perfect mix of drama and humore. Frank McCourt learns to deal with the death of his siblings, the awful stench of sewage outside of his door, and a drunken father who spends the family's welfare money on alcohol. Even though McCourt's memori is tragic and full of sorrow, the story still exhibits a strong chararcter to live by and humorous undertones such as a longing for lemonade and fish and chips.

Rating:
Summary: Saddening
Review: Frank McCourt creates an intriguing autobiography that leaves the reader crying from laughter and from sorrow. In the novel, McCourt uses gruesome details that vividly poytray his childhood. The novel is an autobiography of a Catholic boy growing up in Ireland. It shows how real poverty was in that time period. The poverty nearly killed the family's pride as well as their physical bodies.This novel also has the humor of a young boy reaching maturity and learning to deal with himself and his impulses. The more one reads the more the story is laid out. I could not put it down once I started. After finishing I was left in awe of McCourt and how he survived his childhood. I recomend this book to all who have a want for survival. This novel takes you through a journey like no other; a journey of love,death, and desire for a better place.

Rating:
Summary: You will connect with the main character...
Review: When most immigrants come to America from Ireland, they don't return. Frank McCourt's family did. After finding conditions in NYC less than desirable, especially when you have an alcoholic father who can't hold down a job, Frankie, who was born in America, and his family return to Ireland. His memoir of a family trying to survive during extreme poverty as he grows up is quite moving. However, for some strange reason, I felt the film, of the same name, did a better job of portraying Frankie's experience to me. Perhaps it had something to do with the author's style, which I sort of disliked. If you don't see the film, then you should read the book. And I really want to see what happens in the sequel, for you did really start to care for young Frankie and want to see if he will make it.