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cluckieduck's review against another edition
- 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
5.0
What it did do, however, was reinforce my love for romance novels because the amount of despair & anguish that poor Mungo goes through is too much for my poor heart. Seems I can only take one piece of contemporary fiction like Young Mungo each year! Thankfully it ended on a somewhat hopeful note, otherwise I don't know how I would have coped.
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Grief, Hate crime, Homophobia, Misogyny, Abandonment, Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Murder, Pedophilia, Violence, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Animal death, Death, Domestic abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Pregnancy, Rape, Religious bigotry, Alcohol, Blood, Classism, Cursing, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Adult/minor relationship, Self harm, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence
Moderate: Excrement and Vomit
Minor: Death of parent
thegayrobotsfromstarwars's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Graphic: Sexual violence, Violence, Abandonment, Domestic abuse, Outing, Rape, Alcoholism, and Homophobia
Moderate: Abortion, Vomit, Body shaming, Confinement, Religious bigotry, Pregnancy, Panic attacks/disorders, Mental illness, and Excrement
tom_pietra's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Murder, Addiction, Bullying, Outing, Sexual assault, Pedophilia, Sexual harassment, Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, and Drug use
saoirsebb's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Graphic: Rape, Misogyny, Alcoholism, Panic attacks/disorders, Emotional abuse, Adult/minor relationship, Sexual violence, Sexual harassment, Physical abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Homophobia, Domestic abuse, Abortion, and Pedophilia
winedarkwords's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Douglas Stuart has my loyalty for life; I’ll read anything he writes from here on. This was a book that had me setting my alarm for hours before I needed to wake for work, because I was so desperate to carve out time to read.
In my review for Stuart’s first book, Shuggie Bain, I called it my version of A Little Life. For all of its complexity and skill, the book is so suffused with a feeling of tense devastation that never releases, to the point where both during and after reading I was trapped in a great ball of gross feelings somewhere between sadness and loss.
By comparison, Young Mungo is every bit as tightly written, and exists in a similar world to Shuggie’s (the setting: 1980s working-class Glasgow. The topics: alcoholism, toxic masculinity, sexuality, classism, a teen boy’s love for his mother), but the intimate details and voice of the story vastly differ; I was worried that this book would only be a re-vamped version of the previous, but that is not the case at all.
Mungo is near-16, his mother disappears for weeks at a time either on benders or in pursuit of men (sometimes both) and he survives his days in the tenement with his older siblings: 18 year-old Hamish (a Glaswegian Peter Pan, high on speed and in charge of a vicious group of lost boys armed with broken glass and homemade tomahawks, who has tasked himself with the responsibility of apprenticing Mungo to himself as his future lieutenant); and 16-year old Jodie (the Wendy Darling of this analogy, who has tasked herself with the responsibility of raising Mungo as if he were her own child - feeding him, setting baths, plying him with sketchbooks and working so that bills are paid and social services won’t sniff him out before he comes-of-age).
For all of the seedy violence and danger written into the story, there is also a level of adventure and even humour, at times. Mungo’s world is a harsh and realistic one, but the multi-faceted nature of the characters makes for surprising scenes displaying their vulnerability and capacity for showing their version of love and loyalty (I’m thinking of Hamish, as terrible as he is, taking Mungo on a joy-ride to a castle, or coming back to save him every time he falls in a fight - despite it being clear that he would never do so for anyone else, to the extent of what he does for Mungo on the very last page; he’s an extremely skewed person, but richly drawn in every way that the characters are in <i>Shuggie Bain</i>).
As for the love story, it is every bit as real as promised and I don’t want to spoil anything by detailing it any further.
This is a book I need for my personal shelves because I know I’ll be reading it more than once. No doubt I’ll come back to this review and feel embarrassed over how inadequate it is, but for now I don’t have the vocabulary to cipher the jumbled mess that is my brain after finishing <i>Young Mungo</i> for the first time.
(I received this arc from Netgalley in exchange for an open and honest review).
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Hate crime, Homophobia, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, and Violence