Reviews tagging 'Animal cruelty'

Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart

75 reviews

alisonburnis's review

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.5

Split into two timelines, Young Mungo follows Mungo, a fifteen year old Glaswegian Protestant. His older brother, Hamish, is a respected gang leader, while his sister Jodie is brilliant. Hamish wants Mungo to be a man and join the gang properly, while Jodie wants him to do better and escape their working class, rough life. Mungo meets James one day, a boy a bit older who keeps pigeons, and strikes up a friendship with him - a friendship which becomes love. 

The first timeline chronicles Mungo’s life in the city, while the second chronicles a fishing trip Mungo goes on, in the near future to the first timeline. Stuart’s framing works beautifully here, giving you bits and pieces of clues as you go along, to understand how Mungo ended up on a seemingly random fishing trip. 

If you enjoyed Shuggie Bain, you’ll enjoy this. Once again, Stuart is compassionate and kind; the trauma of this book is never gratuitous or bleak. This is tender despite its content, and Mungo is a sweet, loving teenager in the midst of a society that will not allow him to be. A beautiful story of queer love and working class Scotland. 

I received this ARC via NetGalley in exchange for my feedback. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Homophobia, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Blood, and Religious bigotry

daisywilkes's review against another edition

dark sad tense medium-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Cursing, Drug use, Hate crime, Homophobia, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Blood, Police brutality, Religious bigotry, Abortion, Murder, Pregnancy, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment

_bookishbella's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual violence, Violence, Blood, Religious bigotry, Murder, Pregnancy, Outing, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

mybookcorner's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense 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

2.5

My expectations were quite high and I was left pretty disappointed with this one. Two intense plot lines mixed with a very predictable storyline of a main character made this quite a sludge for me to get through. It wasn’t breathtaking and wasn’t very riveting. Stuart writes his characters with charm and it’s easy to get attached to them, but it would’ve been easier to not have two storylines mixed in together. It made the pace struggle. I wanted to know more about James and Mungo. But in my opinion, this was such a minimal portion of the novel. And I was disappointed. 

After hearing such rave reviews about Shuggie Bain I was looking forward to this being my first Stuart (this proof was gifted my way), but I was honestly so bored. I’m sure those who loved Shuggie might love this. I wish I could be more eloquent but I just didn’t enjoy this as much as I’d hoped. 

Thank you Picador for sending this my way for an honest review.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Homophobia, Misogyny, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Abandonment, and Classism

the_literarylinguist's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective slow-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Bullying, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Violence, Blood, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Self harm

Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Racial slurs, and Death of parent