A review by hilaryreadsbooks
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart

i’m not ready to let go of shuggie & agnes just like the way shuggie will never be able to let go of agnes. shuggie danced his way into my heart—his softness, his vulnerability, his big words and big love. “what good was a soft boy in a hard world?” shuggie’s half-brother scornfully thinks, but in a way shuggie’s softness is what keeps him alive in this hard world. 
there is a scene where shuggie gives in to the way his body aches to move. he dances and dances just to see a smile stretch across his mother’s face. he is, as described, “helpless to stop it”: it’s a part of him, this musicality. and then he looks out the window to see his neighbors laughing & jeering at him, and he falters, but agnes tells him to hold his head high, to keep dancing. and he does. he keeps dancing. stuart throws hardship after hardship, heartbreak after heartbreak, person after person who doesn’t understand shuggie’s softness at this big-hearted boy. and somehow he keeps dancing. 
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