A review by brianna_reading5
Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart

challenging dark emotional sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.25

a very emotional and dark read (check tw's before reading!) that also could be really beautiful at times. the prose were stunning, and the characters were very complex and interesting, but the pacing just bothered me a bit. i found it to be extremely slow with nothing going on up until the 50% mark, then so much begins to happen and it feels like the story is really starting, then the ending feels really fast - like we barely have time to process all of the super important things that just happened! it's not that the ending lacks depth or meaning - it feels gratifying although ambiguous at the same time - it just feels very fast. i still really liked it, but it's not for everyone and it isn't perfect!

i can't stop thinking about this quote though:

“Mungo’s capacity for love frustrated her. His loving wasn’t selflessness; he simply could not help it. Mo-Maw needed so little and he produced so much. So that it all seemed a horrible waste. It was a harvest no one seeded, and it blossomed from a vine no one tended. It should have withered years ago. Yet Mungo had all this love to give and it lay about him like ripened fruit and nobody bothered to gather it up."
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