Reviews with content warning for Misogyny - Young Mungo

Wow. I just finished Young Mungo right now and I can’t believe the story is done. I feel sad I can’t live through Mungo’s experiences anymore but at the same time, I don’t want to experience them again either. It was written beautifully; it has you going through different waves of emotions. Jodie surprised me at the end, they all did, except Mo-Maw. Mungo is my favorite character, and so is Poor-Wee-Chickie. I give this book a 5/5 in stars. Would I read it again? No. I wouldn’t read it again because of how it made me feel. You will have moments where you want to laugh, cry, scream, squeal, etc. At times I wanted to throw the book and patch it up again. It truly is an amazing story that draws you in. It’s going on the favorites list.

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andrea_lachance's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

God, my feelings about this book are so complicated. Stuart writes with such lyricism and beauty that makes the extremes of violence and beauty in this book dance on a razor's edge. It's a good book. It's heartbreaking, and it is not for everyone.

The beginning of the book is slow going, trying to parce who's-who and what exactly is going on takes time. The second half really kicks into gear with gut-wrenching revelations. Mungo is a babe in the woods, and this book beats the innocence out of Mungo in the worst possible ways.

It's a good read. An important read. There are probably people with much better reviews for this book, this is me spitballing.

Personally, the detailed descriptions for characters dealing with alcoholism were so tough for me to read because it was so realistic. It's horrifying what kinds of details one notices when a body is so ravaged by alcohol abuse.

I give it a 4.5 because the emotions I went through reading this book were so viceral, and for me personally that's one of the most important things a book like this can do.

Mungo's relationship with his mom is codependent, incestuous, and emotionally abusive. This book speaks volumes about class and poverty directly impact the cycle of abuse in families. It's painful to read about, especially when it takes the whole book and Mungo being violently assaulted twice for Mungo to realize that his mother will never love him the way he loves her. It's brutal. The phone call between Gallowgate and his mother was such a horrid moment of realization for me.

The glimmer of hope at the end is a sigh of relief. The ride in the car with the nice man was a reprieve. Poor Mungo isn't young when he comes home. He knows his family will never be the same, Josie will go to college and never come back, Mo-maw will keep drinking and being with whatever man will give her attention, and Hamish will keep stirring shit with the Catholics. So he leaves. We don't get to know where. But he's choosing to break the cycle of abuse.

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doramag's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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danidamico's review against another edition

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Me da un poco de pena abandonar este libro habiendo llegado al 65%, pero creo que un aspecto clave a la hora de disfrutar las lecturas es aprender a soltarlas cuando las ganas de seguir no están. Hace tiempo que tenía muchas ganas de leer a Douglas Stuart y estaba ilusionada, sin embargo, debo decir que no me gustó mucho lo que leí. No sé exactamente a qué se debe, pero estoy bastante cansada de leer ficción cuyo único objetivo parece ser impactar al lector con unos niveles de sufrimiento y violencia que terminan por tener el efecto contrario a conmoverme. Es tan tremenda la secuencia de cosas terribles que le pasan a Mungo en esta novela que llega un punto en el que me genera rechazo seguir leyendo, me resulta morboso leer 400 páginas sobre la explotación de un chico de 15 años. El único mérito literario que le encontré a la novela es el uso del dialecto de Glasgow, siempre me resulta interesante el trabajo con la oralidad, sobre todo cuando se sale de lo que es considerado "correcto" y les da el espacio a las voces que suelen ser empujadas a los márgenes. Lamentablemente, más allá de eso, no encontré nada que me produjera el deseo de continuar con la lectura. Sinceramente me pregunto cuál es el punto de presenciar esta seguidilla de pedofilia, abusos sexuales y violencia. ¿Para qué? También la manera en la que se aborda el tema de la violencia de género es muy cuestionable, cómo aparecen retratadas las mujeres en esta historia y demás.

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remimicha's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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notthatcosta's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

This was a book of two halves for me. I loved it as an ethnography slice of life from the East End of Glasgow in the 90s, which I found very interesting. The characters were very well fleshed out and the 'world' felt incredibly vivid and visceral. Douglas Stuart is clearly very talented at world building.

However, the flashes forward to the plot at the loch veered into misery porn in a way that felt unnecessary. I hate the countryside as much as it is, and I don't feel like the events that transpired really added anything to the book, nor did it really inform the plot. I feel like it would have been a total triumph had it completely erased that sub plot, including the ending.

Overall the excellent parts outweigh the part I resented having to read, and I'm keen to read Shuggie Bain off the back of this.

Content Warnings

pierrojenesais's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

“Young Mungo” creates a great depiction of how toxic masculinity treats young boys in society. My love for Mungo is deeper than a fictional character should be able to make me feel. But his love and suffering feels too real and I can’t help it. He will surely haunt my mind for a long time.
Also this book stomped on my heart so many times I felt like it couldn’t get worse. It did.

Content Warnings

johannamrr's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

first of all, this book needs a fucking content warning jesus christ
anywayyy, the pacing was a bit off for the first 150 pages in my opinion bc nothing happened and it was getting slightly boring imo
the writing is great though it‘s just the plot (and how graphic it is) that I struggled with
also, this book is advertised in such a weird way?? like people need to start making it clear when a book is as violent as this one is because they really didn‘t and I don‘t like when stuff like this is being jumped on me (my bad for not looking up the content warnings first, i guess)

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