A review by blainereads
Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart

dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

This was good. I haven’t felt such tension in the last pages of a book since Normal People, probably. Every paragraph (in the last chapters) was a gut punch. I truly didn’t know what was going to happen until the very last sentence (upon which I absolutely let out a breath I fully realized I was holding).

There were moments of such beauty in the prose, devastatingly juxtaposed with the darkest, ugliest elements of humanity. The author is a master of manipulating diction with such subtly that you never feel bulldozed by purple prose or other such literary devices and yet occasionally are just walloped by the truth of the words that you have to go back to reread passages. 

I’ve also not read a dual timeline executed SO well before; while I usually find time gimmicks can tend to be a bit annoying, the story is structured in such a way that you just get dizzying, satisfying emotional whiplash. It’s a bit slow in the beginning but the build up is absolutely worth the emotional payoff. 

I LOVE location as character and this created an incredibly immersive experience that I immediately felt transported to a gritty blue collar Scotland every time I picked up the book. It’s well-situated in its time and yet is also timeless all the same. The language element, though perhaps a bit distracting at first, added important color and character and facilitated a real rhythm of language that I don’t often feel when reading.

I could probably go on and on. I haven’t read the author’s booker-winning debut yet but after this??? I simply have no choice. 
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