Customer Reviews

Angela's Ashes: A Memoir

5 star:		(1,002)
4 star:		(213)
3 star:		(56)
2 star:		(50)
1 star:		(62)

 

 

Yes....it's about an Irish childhood, according to Mr. McCourt the worst childhood you could ever have in those years.

I am just one of the millions that have read this book, making me one of McCourt's fan.

Why I like this book?. Firt of all, I am no Irish (I'm an asian) ; I had no idea how bad growing up in Europe would be like in those days. I've seen movies and all ...but with this book, I can actually not only picture his life, but feeling the hardship he and his family went through. He showed me very clearly life in Ireland was at the time...and at the same time, showed me how beautiful Ireland is too !.

It made me realize, no matter what you are, where you come from, who you are, what your belief is,..the concept of life is the same everywhere. He made me looked back on my own childhood and really value it.

I have also read the sequel "'Tis"...and I can't wait for the next one "The Teacher Man"..will be released in November this year!.

To me, he is a very one of a kind writer. I definitely agree when one of his professors told him he's got a 'rich past(childhood)'. I also like his way of writing...it's almost like he's speaking his mind right out to me when I'm reading it.

Frank McCourt is definitely one of my favourites.

My review's title deliberately refers to James Joyce's 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man'. Joyce is regarded as "the great Irish author" in several circles, which can make work by an Irish writer a response to his body of work. I read 'Angela's Ashes' as a story within the tradition of Joyce's novel for a few reasons. First, this book is about Frank McCourt's spiritual maturity, with a slight nod to his artistic temperament as well. Second, poverty, class, and religion are prominent themes in both books. Last, the narrative (excepting the first thirty or so pages) matures as the younger Francis does. However concrete these parallels are, McCourt only makes tacit homage to Joyce. 'Angela's Ashes' inverts the search for artistry, and favours Frank McCourt's personal ambition to overcome poverty. In that respect, it's an Irish-American memoir because of its focus on class and McCourt's own "American dream."

This book is about the author's life living in extreme poverty in Ireland when he was growing up. It's blunt and often humourous despite the hardships that the family goes through just to survive. I loved the honesty in which the author told his story and I was taken into a world otherwise that I would never have known. Bravo!

I loved the story. It is very relatable in many aspects.
I would recomend it to everybody. I lived similar story.

Didn't know it would be a very much shortened version of the book! Bought it to replace a much loved original version, and was very disappointed.

This book was very hard to put down and strongly recommended to various different readers. Definitely a must read for anyone.

This book is emotionally engaging and will take you on a journey that will make you angry, sad and happy. As a memoir the book is a view from a child's eye on growing up poor. It drags one though alcoholism as a cause of poverty, to shaming from officials, and the ever present hunger. This aspect of the book reads like a Dickens story in the first person.

The journey takes the reader from New York City to Limerick and back to NY, and describes some of the places and cultural features of those places. The social and economic hangover of 800 years of colonialism in Ireland is described, as well as the irony of having to be dependent on the former masters of the Emerald Isle.

The book encompasses a moral coming of age story as the child grows up having to deal with some totally unreasonable expectations that adults and the church place on him. In parts of the book the reader plays with children as it should be, but then the reader is carried along into some very adult situations, like having to steal food to eat.

The book starts off with awkward prose as if a child is writing it and the first impression is subpar, but the style of writing improves with less repeats of subjects and it gains better cadence and variety. Frank McCourt is a master of understating emotions and the reader will be engaged to such an extent that they will be feeling hopeful, but get disappointment when the money-gram does not come.

This book is in the same class as Slum Dog Millionaire and City of God. It is not a fun book to read, but it is an experience to read. I highly recommend it for anybody who wants a serious read, for social workers, and for anybody wanting to understand poverty. I was glad the poverty ended for the child, but I was disappointed that the story had to end.

One could think "How could anyone grow up in this environment and make it out sane?" But he manages to relive his life and bring it forward with such wit and charm, the true Irish way, that it makes you happy he survived the ordeal and wrote about it. He shared his life with such innocence and wit, he drew you into his life, and there are so many areas in the book one can relate to.
Bless his soul for sharing his life with us. 'Tis was equally as appealing

I like books that can draw me into other worlds, and this book certainly does that. In this book, author Frank McCourt gives an honest and detailed memoir of his miserable Irish Catholic childhood. I was amazed during most of the book what people will do out of ignorance and poverty and slavish devotion to a religious idea. The style of writing captured my interest from the first page. The horrors of growing up in extreme poverty were vividly portrayed, but it wasn't that much of a downer. In fact, you wish young Frank and his family well. McCourt's ability as a writer is a powerful picture of his creative powers. He weaves a magic spell.

This book tells the story of the childhood of Frank McCourt. McCourt was just an ordinary boy, born in New York City of Irish immigrant parents. After a family tragedy, his parents returned to Ireland with the children. And that's how this little kid from New York City ended up growing up in a lane in an Irish slum, learning essential survival skills like how to keep his belly full and his feet dry. It seemed that everything that could go wrong did- -Frank's father was a drunk who couldn't bring home a paycheck for more than a few weeks running, the house where they lived was flooded each spring from the lane's common privy, and educational opportunities were quite limited for boys without funds. In such circumstances, the only way to survive is not to fret about tomorrow or what the neighbors might think, but to go ever forward with determined independence.

As I listened to this story as read by the author, I kept hearing my own grandfather's voice. Yes, I'd heard all the stories about childhood deprivation and inner strength, about drunken fathers and run-down houses, but I'd never really listened when my grandfather told them. "He's exaggerating," I thought, "Nobody ever lived like that." But after hearing the details of Frank's childhood, I realize that my grandfather wasn't complaining about his childhood or looking for sympathy. He was just trying to paint a picture of the experiences that he lived through, which were so very different from my own. There was something about my grandfather's style of speaking that made him sound different from everyone else I knew. He was born in the US so he didn't have an Irish accent at all, but there was something peculiar about the rhythm of his speech and the style of relating to others that I never noticed in other people's voices. As McCourt narrates conversations between his parents and aunts and uncles, I can hear my grandfather jumping into the fray, a bit drunk, but not so drunk that he couldn't come out with a witty remark that still leaves people laughing when they remember it forty years later. I understand now- -my grandfather was simply Irish. This book is a wonderful telling of childhood with all its ups and downs, honesty and deceit, grief and joy. McCourt's writing draws the reader into Frank's world, where they can hear his father singing in the pub and smell the bread and onions frying on the stove.