First of all this book requires a trigger warning for practically everything from start to finish. There were moments when I had to take a break out of shock. Despite that, it was an extremely emotive story about navigating being gay in a housing estate in Glasgow, whilst having to deal with his alcoholic mother and his overbearing brother. A lot of the characters were unlikable. I feel like this was too graphic for me, and might be better for someone else. I definitely recommend looking into the themes of this before reading it.

I loved Young Mungo. I think Stuart has a real talent for writing the mundane in an extraordinary way: this book is perfect for fans of John Boyne's The Heart's Invisible Furies, I loved the intimate glimpse into life as a Glaswegian. This book taught me so much and while there is mature content, I know quite a few teenagers who would enjoy this.

Young Mungo is the story of a boy growing up in the poor part of Glasgow. He is a sensitive young man who lives with a bullying brother, a drunk mother, and a sister who is trying to hold it all together.
Mungo is a sensitive boy and as such is a target for his older brother, his sister tries to protect him and his mother uses him.
The descriptions of life in the housing estate are vivid and frightening seem real.
The story is at times hopeful and at times heartbreaking.
I found myself rooting for Mungo and hoping it would change for him but it all seemed so hopeless until he met someone with whom he could communicate and be himself. Would that relationship survive or be ruined by his horrific brother?
The times when Mungo was with James were his happiest and he got a glimpse of the possibilities of a life filled with joy but time and again he was pushed back and beat down.
Will he triumph or be eaten by the counterculture of the estates?
It is the kind of book that one reflects on after reading and keeps wondering about this, and that, and what if.

Since finishing this novel, I have been debating how, and when, to review it. Should I wait until my thoughts have percolated a bit more? And what about the issue of trigger warnings, because if there is one book that needs a lurid ‘hazardous to your emotional state’ sticker, this is it. But then any mention of potential triggers to alert sensitive readers will spoil the plot for savvy readers, especially as this is a book that pivots on certain key events.

One elephant in the room I want to get out of the way first: This is not ‘Shuggie Bain 2.0’, even though it features a similar setting and milieu. And an alcoholic mother called Mo-Maw. When Jodie asks her brother Mungo: “What on earth would you know about the ways of men, eh?”, what she should be warning him about are the ways (and wiles) of women.

There is none of the sentiment or accidental empathy here that accrued to the mother figure in ‘Shuggie Bain’, by dint of the reader spending so much time in her sozzled company (hogging the limelight from her son, whose name after all does adorn the cover).

Mo-Maw makes a brief appearance at the beginning when she waves Mungo on his way to a fateful fishing weekend with two complete strangers, and then only reappears again round about 100 pages in. Crucially, she is a truly monstrous figure with no redeeming qualities whatsoever, so the less time we spend in her company, the better.

Critics, armchair and otherwise, have not only been decrying ‘Young Mungo’ as ‘Shuggie Bain’ in a different cagoule, but are already lamenting the poor departed muse of author Douglas Stuart, who seems perpetually fixated on Glasgow.

Bear in mind that this is called ‘Young Mungo’, which clearly signposts the boundaries of the novel’s scope. Equally clear is that the ending is likely to irritate those same readers who were annoyed at how ‘Shuggie Bain’ ended. Or, rather, petered out (me included, though I am more ambivalent about the ending of this book).

I for one would love for Stuart to complete a trilogy of Glasgow novels. ‘Old Mungo’ would be as satisfying a title as any for the third, because one thing that fascinates me about the world of extreme poverty, deprivation, and violence depicted so powerfully here is what modern Glasgow looks like beneath the scars of her brutal past. What is this city and its people like today? What remains of the tenements? Is it haunted by the blood and violence that stalked its streets and took place behind closed doors?

In a 2015 BBC News article, Andrew Kerr wrote:

Sir Malcolm Rifkind, who was her Scottish secretary from 1986-1990, famously said in one interview about the Scottish view of Thatcher: "She was a woman, she was an English woman and she was a bossy English woman and they could probably put up with one of these but three simultaneously was a bit too much."

There is an underlying political current throughout the book that turns into quite a live wire whenever Thatcher is mentioned. One of the most devastating scenes in the book (and there are a lot of those) is when Mrs Campbell gets beaten up by her husband, an event that reverberates through the very floorboards of the tenement building.

When Mungo and Jodie go to her rescue by fabricating an excuse as to why she is needed in their flat, and Mungo innocently asks as to why she stays with the bastard, Mrs Campbell launches into a long diatribe justifying her husband’s appalling behaviour: “Ye’re too wee to know anything about men and their anger.”

Another ‘wee elephant’ in the room, to adopt Stuart’s phrasing, is the jacket copy describing this as “the deeply moving story of the dangerous first love of two young men.” A quotation from The Observer review declares this as “a gay Romeo and Juliet set in the brutal world of Glasgow’s housing estates”, a description that made me blanch. I think this marketing angle skews the reader’s expectations, because Mungo and James’s affair or dalliance or whatever is exceedingly slow burn. It begins with platonic innocence, and only becomes a focal point in the narrative after about 200 pages. That is halfway through a 400-page novel.

Having said that, the ‘two boys kissing’ cover does reflect two key kissing scenes that occur one after the other that are effectively mirror events. Still, I don’t think this cover is quite accurate in reflecting the tone of the novel. The ‘Mungo submerged’ cover is rather ambiguous and ominous, and it brilliantly reflects two key events involving water. This is the best cover of the two, in my opinion.

What really surprised me about the novel – and puts it in a different class than ‘Shuggie Bain’ altogether – is how bleak it is. If you thought the author’s Booker-winning debut was dark, you ain’t experienced nothing yet. I honestly think no publisher would have touched this with a barge pole if it had not been for Stuart’s commercial and critical success to date.

Apart from those trigger points, there is also the ‘wee matter’ of the Glaswegian dialect. Admittedly I had to carefully reread many sentences to make sure I got the gist of what was being said or inferred, not to mention having to Google quite a few words that I did not understand at all (here I think a brief glossary would have been helpful for international readers). I cannot even begin to imagine what listening to the audiobook must be like.

For my two cents, this is a much stronger and more nuanced novel. It interweaves two timelines: Mungo’s fishing trip, which has a palpable sense of dread hanging on every word, and then his life in Glasgow itself. Stuart’s characters are vivid and heart-breaking, from delicate cameos like Poor Wee Chickie to Ha-Ha, Jodie and, of course, Mungo and James. Their brief three-day interlude of mutual self-discovery is wrought with great delicacy and feeling, which makes the violence and horror this bubble of love and trust is embedded in all the more terrible as it unfolds so inexorably.

I had to put the novel down halfway at a particularly grim point, which made me wonder what had happened to the love angle. Stuart is an intuitive storyteller though. Just when I became overwhelmed and was about to give up any sense of hope in the humanity of the story, he quietly and effortlessly switched to tracing the growing attraction between Mungo and James, two damaged children from torn families in a broken world, and on the wrong side of a religious and cultural divide to boot. It is a wondrous light that glows all too briefly in the final darkness that descends so quickly.

I love 'Shuggie Bain' and although 'Young Mungo' has a similar writing style this feels more polished.
Mungo is such a likeable character but it is his sister, Jolie who I had the most sympathy with.
This novel is written from two distinct times that converge in the climactic ending. One strain of the story follows Mungo while on a fishing trip with two sinister men who clearly are up to no good and the second strain is set in the past following Mungo's very difficult poverty stricken situation.
The novel explores the cruelty and kindness of humanity in such a sensitive manner. There are some beautiful moments.
Overall, if you liked/loved Stuart's debut - you should read this. Looking forward to something a little different though for his third novel.

First of all: TW for basically everything in this book. I’ll start off by saying that I really really wanted to love this book, but I think I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to enjoy it. The first half of the book felt incredibly slow, and at times it was hard for me to even read a chapter in one sitting. By the time I got halfway through (to all the most traumatic parts) the pace was quicker, but I also think I was just motivated to finish and move onto something else.

There were things that I appreciated about this book, largely the depictions of the working class, toxic masculinity, and navigating those spaces as a young queer person. Overall this book just wasn’t for me, or at least it wasn’t for me right now.

What am I supposed to even do with myself after reading this book?!

Full no spoiler review here: https://casperintherye.wordpress.com/2022/01/30/no-spoiler-arc-book-review-young-mungo/

I'll preface this review by saying that I've not read Shuggie Bain yet. I know some of the other reviewers are giving a comparison between the two books. I can't do that, so I'll give you a fresh perspective of Young Mungo on its own.

At its heart, Young Mungo is a story of being raised in an environment rife with toxic masculinity and violence. It's about the way that environment crafts a child during their formative years and fundamentally changes the structure of their future.

Mungo is a sweet, naive 15 year old growing up in Glasgow's East End with his alcoholic absentee mother, his gang leader older brother, and his intelligent, ambitious older sister. Despite being only a year and a half older than him, Mungo's older sister sees to it that he's properly fed as their mother traipses about for weeks at a time with this man and that. Mungo's proud Protestant older brother, a new father himself, spends most of his time selling (and taking) speed and fighting the Catholic street gangs.

When Mungo meets James, a Catholic boy across the street who has an affinity for capturing race pigeons in his dovecote, the two find themselves bonding over the shared stresses of their violent environments. As the two grow closer; however, they find themselves in increasing danger.

The story of Mungo's day-to-day life is interlaced with chapters about a fishing trip Mungo's mother has sent him on with two drunkards who promise to teach him how to be a man. The idea of how to be a "real man" is something that is thrusted upon Mungo on a daily basis by his brutish older brother, his alcoholic mother, his exhausted sister, and the neighbors in his housing estate. But if Mungo wants to find his way back to James, it's going to take everything he's learned in his 15 years, and a whole lot of courage.

I found this book to be wildly gritty, devastating, and at once beautiful. This is not a book that romanticizes bad situations. None of us would ever want to be in Mungo's environment. When bad things happen in this book, they are bad and Stuart's detailed writing shows no mercy. I felt all of the anxiety and dread that Mungo felt throughout this entire story. There were times I just wanted to get away from this book because it gave me such a visceral reaction.

At the end of the day, this is a book whose characters live rent-free in your head long after you finish the last page. I felt so protective of Mungo. Angry when he was angry, happy when he was happy, sad when he was sad.

It's so early in the year to say, but this might be one of my top reads of 2022 already. Highly recommended for those who don't mind a gut punch of a book with detailed character development and a deep exploration of love amidst violence.

Thank you to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Young Mungo follows Mungo and his family: his absent, alcoholic mum, his violent brother and his loving sister. Set against the backdrop of working class Glasgow in the 90s, the novel is 90% heartbreaking to 10% heartwarming.

The story is told through two alternative timelines set only a few months apart. One follows Mungo through Glasgow - covering his relationship with his family, working class struggles and discovering his sexuality. The other follows Mungo and two strangers - friends of his mother - in desolate countryside. What happens while they’re there will change the course of Mungo’s life forever.

The juxtaposition of violence and the young, innocent romance is jarring. Stuart seems to have a way of letting you see just enough hope in the bleak circumstances to keep you feeling that everything might just turn out ok, and then snatching that hope away. If I was someone who ever cried at books, I would have been weeping.

Raw, evocative and visceral, I will definitely be getting a physical copy of Young Mungo to reread once it’s published.

Thank you to Grove Atlantic for the ARC via NetGalley in exchange for this honest review.

I'll start off by saying Douglas Stuart writes so beautifully. The emotions here are described so vividly that you are able to feel the despair and heartbreak that comes with not being able to be with who makes you happy, and the pain of not being accepted by those you love and sacrifice the most for. Stuart is able to transport you to this time and bring to light the day-to-day violence against queer people and really showcases how toxic masculinity was so deeply embedded in those times.

As other readers have pointed out, for me this was too similar of a character to Shuggie Bain and as a result felt more like a sequel than a standalone novel - Young Mungo being much darker and more graphic. There were paragraphs I skipped over entirely because of their graphic nature - trigger warnings: pedophilia, statutory rape, hate crimes.

The story is about Mungo - a Protestant in Glasgow, son of a single alcoholic mother who isn't around, raised by his older sister, and tormented by this older brother. Mungo has been an outsider for most of his life until he meets James Jamieson - a Catholic - at around age 16 and falls in love. The book hops back and forth between two timelines: the past with James, and the present happenings of a weekend away with two AA men that his mother sent him away with. Stuart brings the two timelines together in the final chapter. The storyline with James felt too rushed to me - the book has many detailed, horrific scenes of the weekend away but very little scenes of James and Mungo's interactions which made it more challenging for me to resonate with their love story.

If you enjoyed the writing in Shuggie Bain, you may enjoy this one too. It just wasn't all there for me personally. I will, however, pick up any of Stuart's future novels.

"Everything beautiful was always ruined." Truly one of the most thrilling novels from start to finish that I have ever read.

From the beginning, Mungo's character is so captivating that you can't help but to feel the need to suck more out of his story. This is more than just a story about young queer love in a society that rejects it at all costs. Rather, how life will fight to tear you down no matter what. An amazing story about self discovery and acceptance.

"...Mungo had moulded himself so entirely around Mo-Maw, how she had formed him into the exact component piece that she had been missing, and now that she didn't need him anymore, he was stuck in this weird specific shape." Anyone who has struggled with holding onto the toxic relationship with their emotionally manipulative alcoholic mothers will relate to this story like no mother. Stuart managed to perfectly plot out what that dynamic is like, in a way that felt like he had just crawled inside my head and ripped out my own flawed relationship with my alcoholic mother.

Finding sanctuary in the one you love and the doubts that come along with the fear of your emotions being deemed "wrong' somehow is a heart wrenching theme throughout the novel that made it impossible to put down.

There is so much more I could say but there would be no fun in spoiling such an outstanding novel. Definitely a must read.

upon finishing this novel my brain is racing a thousand miles per minute, full of the ‘what ifs’, torn between the harrowing experiences mungo experienced and the beautifully exquisite writing splayed before my eyes. it almost feels wrong to admit i enjoyed this book, for it has left me a shell of my former self - it has left me speechless.

theres no denying the sheer allure of stuarts writing, his ability to create this world so vastly vivid and full of life. yet giving us a protagonist facing some of life’s worst experiences, surrounded by stark beautiful scenery. we’re painted this picture of beauty in the face of horror.

having not read douglas stuart’s first novel ‘shuggie bain’ i didn’t quite know what would await me in this piece. going in with only the bare minimum knowledge, expecting a somewhat sad, coming of age tale about a queer glaswegian boy. i’m left in complete awe, from its rich lyricism to the harrowing experiences mungo went through. this book is profound and deeply upsetting but its left me desperately eager to devour ‘shuggie bain’ and anything else douglas stuart is sure to produce.

Young Mungo tells the story of Mungo Hamilton, a young Protestant who grows up in Glasgow - and falls in love with a Catholic boy, much to the disappointment of his (broken) family.

It is a story about forbidden love and shame, the process of learning to make your own decisions, toxic masculinity, losing your innocence and having to grow up quickly.
Mungo is an incredibly loveable main character, despite being almost frustratingly naive - Douglas Stuart is showing his talent not only through the prose itself, but also the characters. All of them are tragic in their own sense, so readers who are looking for a feel-good-novel should definitely look elsewhere.

This book is a touching, heavy piece of literature and I recommend it to everyone who can deal with graphic depictions of violence and rape.

(I have received an ARC through NetGalley.)

Although wel written, I thought it was an awfull book full of violence, alcoholisme, homofobia, child-molesters, poverty, agression, illegal activities, illegal abortion, predjudice, hate and much much more negativity. Only the very last sentence of the book gave me some hope, but you have to work yourself through a pile of dirt.
The wirter also used Glaswegion dialect, for a not native speaker, this was very hard to follow, I had to read the lines aloud to get an idea.
So, I am sorry to say i will not recommend this book.

I’m going to attempt to review this book but I honestly don’t know if I’ll be able to communicate how amazing it is.

Similar to Shuggie Bain, (if you’ve not read that then you need to) Mungo is a young boy who is hopelessly devoted to his alcoholic Mother who feels her three children are a burden and regularly abandons them for men. The three children, Mungo, Jodie and Hamish are so different and we get to know the issues they’re each facing throughout the book.

A big part of the book is the love story between Mungo, a Protestant boy, and James, a Catholic boy. However, covering issues of poverty, abuse, homophobia, Sectarian divisions and associated violence, this book is very dark in places and quite a difficult read. Douglas Stuart portrays Mungo in such a beautiful and gentle way which made me feel so much empathy towards Mungo.

Douglas Stuart can do no wrong in my eyes. The way he writes is like no other and I’m in awe of his ability to make me feel so connected to the characters. I was so invested in each of their stories and got so emotional at many points throughout. I did not want this book to end!

If you’re planning on reading this, prepare yourself for the absolute masterpiece that it is, but also for a lot of emotion and heartbreak!

Young Mungo was one of my most anticipated 2022 releases - I really enjoyed Stuart's previous novel, Shuggie Bain, and this book seemed to be a similar type of work. Unfortunately, Young Mungo did not have the same impact.

Young Mungo is the story of an adolescent boy, Mungo, and his coming of age in Glasgow. Mungo has always been a little different than his brother and other boys, which is confirmed when he meets his neighbor, James. This story covers Mungo's childhood and his love story with James.

I am not sure why, but so much of this book didn't resonate with me. I felt like the first 40% to 50% was all background and filler and did not tell much of a story. It was largely filled with Mungo's family and their background. Queer love story or not, I unfortunately did not love this as much as I had hoped.

Thank you to Grove Atlantic and Net Galley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

At first glance, Young Mungo's premise seems similar to Shuggie Bain: we have a soft-hearted gay boy growing up in working class east Glasgow, the youngest of three siblings and still clinging to the love of his absent alcoholic mother while the other two have detached from her. But the plot veers in an entirely different direction.

There are two timelines here: one follows Mungo's life in Glasgow as he struggles to live up to the expectations of his brother Hamish, a gang leader, and sister Jodie, who wants to escape her working class life and for Mungo to find a way out too. The novel is billed primarily as the love story between Mungo, who is Protestant, and James, a Catholic. But the relationship between Mungo and James is only a small fraction of the story - tender and well-developed despite its economy. The family dynamics, the cycle of poverty, violence, and addiction, and Mungo's struggles to survive as a soft, loving teenage boy in a harsh world are all equally important aspects of the novel. I personally would say the narrative of loss of innocence is the primary dynamic here.

James's greatest desire is to leave Glasgow and his homophobic father, and Mungo dreams of joining him. When we do see Mungo outside of the city, it is in the second timeline: he is on a fishing trip with two older criminals. I don't want to say much about this timeline because I think it's best to know very little about it, but it functions as scaffolding for the entire novel and it's very effective.

Though at times the writing was a little bit clunky, in general I find Stuart's prose both readable and evocative. The dialogue in Shuggie Bain brought the whole thing to life for me, and he continues to excel there. Glasgow lifts off the page, vibrant and in constant motion. Stuart's character work is wonderful - compassionate, complex. Even minor characters come to life at his hands. Though the story is sad, though there is trauma coursing through the pages, the novel never feels maudlin. The way Stuart depicts the social failings that create violence, the moments of levity, the humour in the characters' banter all make the book feel like much more than a voyeuristic window into suffering.

I'm confident that those who loved Shuggie will love this one. Stuart remains a fantastic chronicler of queer life and love in 80s and 90s working class Glasgow.

Before reading this book, I had the preconceived notion that this was going to be similar to two beloved stories: Romeo and Juliet for the forbidden romance aspect and The Heart's Invisible Furies for the simple reason that both books center around growing up gay in a Celtic country. This story was hardly comparable to the two aforementioned texts, and I could not be more pleased with how this book transpired.

Young Mungo is a snapshot into the life of Mungo Hamilton, a working class boy in Scotland who is dealing with a gang leader brother who feels he must be a guide to Mungo, a fly-by alcoholic mother, and a sister who sees no future for herself apart from being the stand in mother for her family. Mungo feels divided in his place in his Glaswegian community, and his difficulties grow even more when he develops feelings for a boy whose love is taboo in more ways than one. His life is complicated, yet beautiful, only to be more complex with a weekend fishing trip.

The book was beautifully written and made me want to protect Mungo at all costs. Mungo's tenderness does not come off as a weakness, and I really felt for him when he was trying to juggle the dealings of his heart with his own societal and familial expectations.

I really appreciate the fact that, although this story follows a fifteen year-old, it is not a young adult book. The intricacies and hardships of his life simply could not be portrayed as painstakingly beautiful for a younger audience, in my opinion.

If I haven't already made it obvious enough, I gave this book five stars. Thank you so much to Grove Atlantic for giving me the opportunity to read this book, and please, get your hands on this book when it comes out on April 4th!

Lets talk about a new phenomenal piece of literature which will be out in April. It’s the book of the year 2022. It’s the sophomore novel of Douglas Stuart. I can promise you “Young Mungo” will stay in your mind and it might break your heart a little bit. Mungo grows up in a working class family in Glasgow as the youngest member of the family. His mother is single and drinks too much alcohol and isnt’t there for him (but he is the only one who cares about her). So his sister tries to raise him up but she is just a teenager and cares more about her affair with her teacher. Mungo falls in love with James who is catholic. That’s kind of a big deal because Mongo is protestantic. This love is in the center of the story but also the incredible genius portrait of the 90s society. Stuart draws a beautiful painting of sadness and poverty in two timelines. He deals with an important topic – our family raises us up and tries to form us. They try to form us into a heterosexual religious person who should have a big career. But if we want to be an different things are getting complicated. The development of the relationship between Mungo & James was written so beautifully. I felt their emotions through the whole book. So as you can guess I cried a lot, because the intense psychological writing style of Stuart made me feel every single page. It reminds me a little bit of Shuggie Bain especially regarding the construction of the protagonists environment. But come on. Its also a very good story again. You’ll feel the pain and you’lle be destroyed after reading the story. Damn I could write a thousand more words but they couldn’t express how genius this novel is. I need more books by Douglas stuart. So fucking genius.

Mungo lives in Glasgow with his dysfunctional family: an alcoholic, mostly absent mother; a sister who though smart, is having problems of her own; and a brother with so much rage and revulsion, he's frightening. As Mungo explores his new relationship with a Protestant teen boy, he has to deal with the homophobia and the conflict of religions in the society that he lives in. Interweaved with the story of Mungo's blossoming relationship, is another timeline that has him sent off on a camping trip with vile acquaintances of his mother. The space in time between the stories is just weeks. It's another well-written novel with so much heart and emotion.

“A vivid portrayal of working-class life and a highly suspenseful story of the dangerous first love of two young men. Born under different stars, Protestant Mungo and Catholic James live in the hyper-masculine and violently sectarian world of Glasgow’s housing estates.”

This book was heartbreaking, funny, and suspenseful.

Douglas Stuart completely sets the scene of what it was like to grow up in the East End of Glasgow and brings life to every character you meet in the story. Some I loved and some I hated but they were all realistically written and illustrated the influence their upbringing had on their lives.

This is the second book from the author of Shuggie Bain and my second 5 star read of the year! Young Mungo is released on the 14th April and I highly recommend it ⭐️

Thank you to NetGalley for sending an early copy to me!