Angela's Ashes (The Frank McCourt Memoirs)

I absolutely fell in love with Frank’s story. It is lighthearted yet lachrymose at the same time. This book made me laugh and cry and I definitely recommend it!

Voice of an innocent child and all they understand, even when they don't understand. There's humor found in the horrible circumstances. The voice of one describing how life just was. Couldn't stop reading after this book. Continued on to his 'Tis, and very glad I did. 'Tis gave closure to his life out of poverty and Angela's life too.

Book is written like a bad English essay...lots of run on sentences. Hard to get into and read.

Found the book hilarious at times but very unsettling

Frank McCourt has a way with words! His memoir of growing up poor in Ireland, with a drunk for a father and lazy, shiftless mother is written without malice. He and his brothers are left to their own devices to keep themselves fed, warm and clothed when Frank, the oldest is not even four years old. They live in a house where the main floor floods every year and they have to wade through the sewage to live in the remaining room upstairs until the water recedes. They grow so cold that they resort to tearing the walls apart for firewood. And yet his mother needs her cigarettes and his father needs his drink. Frank's tenacity and humor in the midst of such misery is his salvation. And it is what makes this memoir so poignant. His own parents and grandparents, neighbors and the Catholic church leave Frank and his brothers to their own devices for survival. And they survive! And go to America. And it's a true story.

I avoided this book for two reasons. The hype. More often than not I am disappointed by highly-hyped books and movies. And, I thought it would depress and exhaust me. But as with Betty Smith's A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, you become so engrossed with the characters that you aren't weighed down by the crushing poverty. It almost seems an afterthought, a tiny detail, yet it is what forms the characters. Both of these books, while written 60 years apart, are written beautifully and skillfully.

Hijo de padres emigrados a Estados Unido y arrepentido el padre se devuelve a Irlanda en Compania de su familia, hijo de una familia de extrema pobreza, padre alcoholico madre enamorada que hace hasta lo imposible por no hacerlo sentir mal Dentro de lo que cabe es una narracion preciosa de lo que tuvo que pasar esta persona, que fueron bastante crueles, la relacion tan estrecha con su madre, Se merece mas de 5 estrellas

Like some reviewers, I found it hard to get past the initial extreme emphasis on poverty. However, poverty is not the point. Hope is the point. Reading this book can be a harrowing experience at times, but is ultimately a joyful one. Anyone who came away from this book with a sense of dread missed the point. The story may be sad, but Mr. McCourt writes it with such beauty and forgiveness that it is a cause for celebration.