Senior Exam : Book Review

Angela’s Ashes is not a melt-your-heart, sappy, feel-good tale. It is crass, brutally soul wrenching, I-cannot-believe-this-actually-happened memoir depicting the life of Frank McCourt growing up in the slums of Limerick, Ireland. What makes a good memoir is one that is quite shocking, almost unbelievable, yet underneath the initial shock the story must settle inside your mind and rock your core until you know that amidst all the sufferings and misdeeds that occur around the world, this personal chronicle must be nothing but the truth. And my friends, Angela’s Ashes does just this. Frank McCourt has a story to tell, a story that seems to get progressively worse and worse, yet amongst the troubles and trials that were ever-present in his young life, a sarcastic sense of humor remains. Angela’s Ashes is a book that you cannot forget. It’s a dark read, a good read, and above all, it’s funny. In that way that shouldn’t be like laughing in church.

One thing that makes this book a stand-out among the other memoirs is the writing style itself. Frank McCourt is one of the only authors I have ever read that successfully is able to capture the mindset of a child. His thoughts are ones that could one come from a young kid, and as he grows, he is unapologetically blunt and inappropriate, just like those immature preteens boys that would laugh at fart jokes on the school bus. Usually reading a book in such a style as this would be revolting. Yet Frank is able to sound so refreshing, so real, like he is telling you the tale of his childhood right next to you in a pub with a pint in hand. What also makes his writing unique is his dark humor. Like I mentioned above, his humor not only remains constant throughout the book, but in your life as well, and for a while after reading his story you like to think of just yourself as witty and hilariously sarcastic as he is.

There are many purposes for writing a story like this one. Frank McCourt had personal reasons, I would assume, for getting all of his memories down on paper. But there are so many connections with his story that can relate to the reader’s life that make his memoir, at times, seem like a fictional tale aimed at a young audience to teach them lessons. For example one lesson that is continuous through the book is that even though you are poor and have no shoes to wear and your dad is drinking the dole money and your brothers are all hungry, you can be rich in your mind. Like his school master said, “You have to study and learn so that you can make up your own mind about history and everything else but you can’t make up an empty mind. Stock your mind, stock your mind. You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace.” This quote exemplifies the fact that learning was a vital key to Frank’s survival. He even equates Shakespeare with the upmost riches, “I don't know what it means and I don't care because it's Shakespeare and it's like having jewels in my mouth when I say the words.”

To conclude, Angela’s Ashes is a book unlike anything else I have ever written. A bit too ramble-y and majorly detailed at times, the book still manages to shine beneath the heaps and heaps of particulars that bog down each page. I give it a strong B+ because of the unique writing style but knocked points because of the heavy details. All in all, I do not regret reading this book and do recommend it. After all, when it comes down to the last page, you feel as if you are losing a friend and wish you could just sit with him and listen to his stories drinking lemonade and eating fish and chips just one more time.