What a great book

I’m in awe of Stuart’s writing… it hurts, it’s lovely, its painful but at the same time so tender. I had a lot of fears when starting this novel, as the premise sounded similar to its predecessor (Shuggie Bain): a fatherless kid with a brother and a sister and an alcoholic mother in working class Glasgow… huge difference was the era: we went from the eighties to the nineties…

And then I started reading the book. It could not have been more different from Shuggie…

I thought when I read Shuggie: this can’t get better! But Mungo is just so much more… I loved the story, even the hard parts (and yes, there are many of those) because this i for me a modern take on Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet. Two boys, one catholic and one protestant, fall in love but their love is challenged by both family’s.

I will not spoil the story but I do want to utter a trigger warning because this is not only a love story. It’s also a story about abuse, about alcoholism and paedophilia… so be warned when reading this novel!

Let me end my short review with expressing my love for the books and the writing of Douglas Stuart. He knows how to grab my heart, squeeze it and then making it grow bigger… I am very much looking forward to his next book!

And I want to express my thanks for the people that joined me in July for the read along I hosted for this novel! You guys rock!