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3.99 AVERAGE
3.99 AVERAGE
Decent, but not something that overly impressed me. Some of the dialogue got on my nerves (a bit too much tis, wee and och). It also got a bit repetitive and I found very little to be redeeming about it. I have no interest in reading anymore of his books though; this was enough.
adventurous
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
i probably wouldn't read this book again, but i did enjoy it.
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
slow-paced
“Who was the main character”?
“Angela...nope, the ashes.”
This was always a book I saw sitting on learned™ people’s shelves and was for some reason intimidated by. I finally revisited it through a buddy read and am so glad to have come back to it. I knew a bit of McCourt’s background and the bleakness of his story, but I wasn’t expecting it to be so...funny?
His childhood was full of horrible and tragic events, from his dad’s alcoholism to the family’s desperate poverty to the dismal conditions of Limerick’s slums, but McCourt uses language and hindsight to reflect on his life with sharp, self-aware humor. I don’t know much about Irish culture and life but the rich details and straight-forward voice of his writing made me feel as if I had been born and bred in those very cobbled streets, having eaten the same stale bread and sharing the same bitter spite against the English. He revisits the traumas and events of his life with a blunt force, leading the reader vertiginously straight into the muddy gray lanes of Limerick and casting us into the minute details of his flea-ridden homes and violent schoolyards. I felt an uncomfortable and morbid curiosity throughout the book, wanting simultaneously for the story to stop and to keep going.
I was also pleasantly surprised at how familiar a lot of it was -- having been raised in a traditional Filipino Roman-Catholic family, I recognized the ritualistic affinity with patron saints and sacraments as well as the fetisihization of martyrdom and virtuous struggle. As different as our countries are, it was fascinating to see the parallels between our childhoods in the church: the First Communion as a rite of passage, the authority of priests, the measure of virtue by how many rosaries you pray in a day and what you give up for Lent, even down to the fear of conversion to other Christian sects (same God, different building and candles).
Recommend this to other lapsed Catholics and fans of the memoir (or maybe autofiction? there was some juicy drama with McCourt vs other Shannonsiders that I’m falling in a youtube rabbithole for)
“Angela...nope, the ashes.”
This was always a book I saw sitting on learned™ people’s shelves and was for some reason intimidated by. I finally revisited it through a buddy read and am so glad to have come back to it. I knew a bit of McCourt’s background and the bleakness of his story, but I wasn’t expecting it to be so...funny?
His childhood was full of horrible and tragic events, from his dad’s alcoholism to the family’s desperate poverty to the dismal conditions of Limerick’s slums, but McCourt uses language and hindsight to reflect on his life with sharp, self-aware humor. I don’t know much about Irish culture and life but the rich details and straight-forward voice of his writing made me feel as if I had been born and bred in those very cobbled streets, having eaten the same stale bread and sharing the same bitter spite against the English. He revisits the traumas and events of his life with a blunt force, leading the reader vertiginously straight into the muddy gray lanes of Limerick and casting us into the minute details of his flea-ridden homes and violent schoolyards. I felt an uncomfortable and morbid curiosity throughout the book, wanting simultaneously for the story to stop and to keep going.
I was also pleasantly surprised at how familiar a lot of it was -- having been raised in a traditional Filipino Roman-Catholic family, I recognized the ritualistic affinity with patron saints and sacraments as well as the fetisihization of martyrdom and virtuous struggle. As different as our countries are, it was fascinating to see the parallels between our childhoods in the church: the First Communion as a rite of passage, the authority of priests, the measure of virtue by how many rosaries you pray in a day and what you give up for Lent, even down to the fear of conversion to other Christian sects (same God, different building and candles).
Recommend this to other lapsed Catholics and fans of the memoir (or maybe autofiction? there was some juicy drama with McCourt vs other Shannonsiders that I’m falling in a youtube rabbithole for)
This is a story of a boy Frank who robustly lives his nadir of hapless and destitute life in Ireland in the early twentieth century. This book has a very unique style of naive boy's stream of consciousness. The humorous touch and colloquial narrative enable us to read a little lightly the sad story. Frank’s positive always finding some small comforts in his life gives us hope.
McCourt does an excellent job of writing from the perspective of whatever age he is writing from in his past, it makes for a beautifully described life and well understood, despite his age sometimes restricting him from understanding some things, overall an incredible life lived and Im glad he got his happy ending in the land of the Yanks.
I tried to finish it but I just couldn't. it was just to hard to get into and the writing style was just not for me.
didn’t expect to enjoy this as much as i did (using enjoy lightly cause this book is depressing), but i was surprised i actually got through the whole thing.