AJ Dunn Reads

  Young Mungo By Douglas Stuart   I loved this book! Young Mungo follows Mungo, a young boy from Glasgow whose alcoholic mother is often MIA, leaving him with his sister Jodie who acts like more of a mother to him. At the beginning we get the idea that Mungo has done something wrong, leading into what presaged that information. Mungo lives in a tough world full of tough men, where there isn't much to do or to look forward to. His older brother Hamish is somewhat of a gang leader and wants Mungo, who is much softer, to toughen up and be more like him: a MAN. Mungo meets James, a Catholic (whereas Mungo is a Protestant) who lives behind him and raises pigeons he shows for prizes and glory. With James Mungo explores his sexuality, which both of them have to hide for fear of the men in their lives. James, a year older than Mungo, wants to get away and is making a plan to do so. As the two become inseparable, navigating this sexual awakening in the awkward ways of youth, Mungo dec...

  Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart Shuggie Bain is one of those rare books in the literary world that deals with the working class life. I wish there were more of them. It's a world I can relate to, people the likes of which I am all too familiar, and the sordid lives they live as they just try to get by. Like Shuggie's mother Agnes, whose love of the bottle impairs her sight of what she's doing to herself and to her kids. Though a lot of Agnes's troubles were not of her own doing exactly, her response to them is entirely her fault. It's the same old story, one I've seen play out many times. Poor me, look what has happened; I'll make poor choices in order to deal with it and to hell with anyone who gets in my way. My children are just collateral damage. Shuggie Bain hit some personal notes for me, not just with his alcoholic mother and absent father, but with the abuse he himself suffers at the hands of other kids and even one adult man because Shuggie is a ...