I read the book Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt, it was a Pulitzer Prize winner and a much talked about book for quite some time. I had to read this book because I had heard quite a few people talking about it. At first when I started to read it, I could not get into the book and truly enjoy the book. As I continued to read the book I started to get hooked and couldn’t stop reading it. It was hard to read about all of the struggles that a family could go through in this time of depression.
Even though this family was going through struggles, losing family members, hunger, wondering where they would sleep that night, if they would even live to see the next day, they still continued to push on and continue about their lives. It was a depressing book in the way of how the children had to suffer through their parents mistakes, their father a constant alcoholic and their mother doing nothing but feeling sorry for herself, leaving the children to take care of each other and themselves and forcing the children to beg and steal for a meal just to stay alive.
Once they move out of the United States back to their home town of Ireland, thinking things will get better, things become no better if not worse. They are faced with diseases and once again hunger. The children never give up hope though. They continue to laugh and be happy even though they know the situation they are in and that is what kept me hooked along with rooting for their survival and happiness.
It was a tough read in the way of punctuation and reading about the situation the children and adults are in. In this book it doesn’t have proper punctuation quoting what people are saying, along with the fact that when the family travels back to Ireland everyone back there talks with ye and och, making the accents that much more relatable. Also a tough read because you are thinking in the back of your head “I cannot believe people actually went through these hardships and overcame them. It makes me truly happy that I live the life I live and I don’t have to experience and overcome the things that people did in the past. A five star book for sure.