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A review by bookcadaver
Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart
5.0
Let me start this review off by saying that everything I’m about to type is probably going to be biased due to the fact I’m Glaswegian, and that this book to me was an instant five stars before I even finished chapter one.
Young Mungo follows fifteen year old Mungo, who’s neglected by his absent, alcoholic mother, and is raised by his older sister, Jodie, who tries her best with taking care of him, even though she is a teenager herself. Mungo has an older brother, Hamish or Ha-Ha, who is head of a Protestant gang (or young team) where what they class as fun and banter, is sectarianism, fighting & being ‘big men.’ Mungo goes through many obstacles during the book, from dealing with the ways of which his family want him to be, toughening him up, making a man out of him, to meeting another boy, James, who happens to be Catholic, who also happens to be the boy Mungo falls head first for.
The book plays out in two different timelines and the novel jumps seamlessly back and forth between them, which I think worked really well and kept me bouncing on my seat due to the anxiety I started to feel as I read on. This book deals with a lot of hard themes such as religion (Protestants against Catholics,) abuse, homophobia, poverty, addiction, slurs, and I feel as though not a lot of people will be expecting such a heavy, bleak and depressing read.
I went into this book expecting a somewhat sad, coming of age queer story, but finished with such a profound and tiring bleakness over all the ‘ifs’ this book had. I felt like I was watching certain parts of my own life play out, and couldn’t help but shift on my seat, take pauses while reading, and had to big myself up to continue reading because I knew what was going to happen, I knew how Mungo was feeling and I knew the effect it would have on him.
Mungo & James were the stars of the book to me, they’re relationship together was done exceptionally well, and really captured the playful and hopeful feeling of first love, along with the heartache and problems that come with being young, queer, in a world that frown upons it. The things they had to experience in this book broke my heart, and although I knew it was coming right from the beginning, I still felt nervous getting to the last quarter of the book because I knew it would be painful and horrifying. Minus their relationship together, both boys go through so much, together and separately, and although we don’t get a glimpse into the future, I surely hoped that both boys found the happiness they both so desperately deserved.
The scheme life, the focus on the bigotry, the violence, the tight-knit characters were done so realistically and even though so many bad events happened during the book, it made my heart swell at the fact that I could relate so heavily to a lifestyle in a book, where it wasn’t just because of my queerness. There were so many things in this book that not a lot of readers will be able to identify with, unless you grew up in Scotland & I think that made reading this that little bit more special.
Douglas Stuart really pushed the bar on this novel, and I can’t wait to see what other works he has in store for us.
Thank you to Netgalley & Pac Macmillian for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
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Young Mungo follows fifteen year old Mungo, who’s neglected by his absent, alcoholic mother, and is raised by his older sister, Jodie, who tries her best with taking care of him, even though she is a teenager herself. Mungo has an older brother, Hamish or Ha-Ha, who is head of a Protestant gang (or young team) where what they class as fun and banter, is sectarianism, fighting & being ‘big men.’ Mungo goes through many obstacles during the book, from dealing with the ways of which his family want him to be, toughening him up, making a man out of him, to meeting another boy, James, who happens to be Catholic, who also happens to be the boy Mungo falls head first for.
The book plays out in two different timelines and the novel jumps seamlessly back and forth between them, which I think worked really well and kept me bouncing on my seat due to the anxiety I started to feel as I read on. This book deals with a lot of hard themes such as religion (Protestants against Catholics,) abuse, homophobia, poverty, addiction, slurs, and I feel as though not a lot of people will be expecting such a heavy, bleak and depressing read.
I went into this book expecting a somewhat sad, coming of age queer story, but finished with such a profound and tiring bleakness over all the ‘ifs’ this book had. I felt like I was watching certain parts of my own life play out, and couldn’t help but shift on my seat, take pauses while reading, and had to big myself up to continue reading because I knew what was going to happen, I knew how Mungo was feeling and I knew the effect it would have on him.
Mungo & James were the stars of the book to me, they’re relationship together was done exceptionally well, and really captured the playful and hopeful feeling of first love, along with the heartache and problems that come with being young, queer, in a world that frown upons it. The things they had to experience in this book broke my heart, and although I knew it was coming right from the beginning, I still felt nervous getting to the last quarter of the book because I knew it would be painful and horrifying. Minus their relationship together, both boys go through so much, together and separately, and although we don’t get a glimpse into the future, I surely hoped that both boys found the happiness they both so desperately deserved.
The scheme life, the focus on the bigotry, the violence, the tight-knit characters were done so realistically and even though so many bad events happened during the book, it made my heart swell at the fact that I could relate so heavily to a lifestyle in a book, where it wasn’t just because of my queerness. There were so many things in this book that not a lot of readers will be able to identify with, unless you grew up in Scotland & I think that made reading this that little bit more special.
Douglas Stuart really pushed the bar on this novel, and I can’t wait to see what other works he has in store for us.
Thank you to Netgalley & Pac Macmillian for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
INSTA | TWITTER