sYoung Mungo was both beautifully earthshattering and exquisitely hopeful. There were many times when this book made me feel on edge and when it made me cry. There were many times that just completely horrible things happened to Mungo and TWs for assault should be minded when reading the book. But despite all of those horribly sad events, the ending was still open for hope, and I think that that's the most important thing. That despite what happened to Mungo and how hopelessly stuck his life situation seemed, there is hope for acceptance and for putting yourself first. This was my first book of Douglas Stuart and the writing was both captivating and enthralling. From cover to cover, the words kept me hooked. I cannot wait to read Shuggie Bain as such.

Thank you Netgalley for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I already know that Young Mungo is going to be one of my top 3 books of 2022.

Douglas Stuart has my loyalty for life; I’ll read anything he writes from here on. This was a book that had me setting my alarm for hours before I needed to wake for work, because I was so desperate to carve out time to read.

In my review for Stuart’s first book, Shuggie Bain, I called it my version of <i>A Little Life. For all of its complexity and skill, the book is so suffused with a feeling of tense devastation that never releases, to the point where both during and after reading I was trapped in a great ball of gross feelings somewhere between sadness and loss.

By comparison, Young Mungo is every bit as tightly written, and exists in a similar world to Shuggie’s (the setting: 1980s working-class Glasgow. The topics: alcoholism, toxic masculinity, sexuality, classism, a teen boy’s love for his mother), but the intimate details and voice of the story vastly differ; I was worried that this book would only be a re-vamped version of the previous, but that is not the case at all.

Mungo is near-16, his mother disappears for weeks at a time either on benders or in pursuit of men (sometimes both) and he survives his days in the tenement with his older siblings: 18 year-old Hamish (a Glaswegian Peter Pan, high on speed and in charge of a vicious group of lost boys armed with broken glass and homemade tomahawks, who has tasked himself with the responsibility of apprenticing Mungo to himself as his future lieutenant); and 16-year old Jodie (the Wendy Darling of this analogy, who has tasked herself with the responsibility of raising Mungo as if he were her own child - feeding him, setting baths, plying him with sketchbooks and working so that bills are paid and social services won’t sniff him out before he comes-of-age).

For all of the seedy violence and danger written into the story, there is also a level of adventure and even humour, at times. Mungo’s world is a harsh and realistic one, but the multi-faceted nature of the characters makes for surprising scenes displaying their vulnerability and capacity for showing their version of love and loyalty (I’m thinking of Hamish, as terrible as he is, taking Mungo on a joy-ride to a castle, or coming back to save him every time he falls in a fight - despite it being clear that he would never do so for anyone else, to the extent of what he does for Mungo on the very last page; he’s an extremely skewed person, but richly drawn in every way that the characters are in <i>Shuggie Bain</i>).

As for the love story, it is every bit as real as promised and I don’t want to spoil anything by detailing it any further.

This is a book I need for my personal shelves because I know I’ll be reading it more than once. No doubt I’ll come back to this review and feel embarrassed over how inadequate it is, but for now I don’t have the vocabulary to cipher the jumbled mess that is my brain after finishing <i>Young Mungo</i> for the first time.

(I received this arc from Netgalley in exchange for an open and honest review).

really lovely and atmospheric and heartbreaking. I actually haven't even read Shuggie Bain so there's no comparisons to be had from me, but this one was such beautiful a mix of tenderness and harsh realities. Stuart really creates strong connection with our setting, with intimate details historical, political, social -- and i just can't get over the the adolescent love, so well done.

thanks so much to Grove Atlantic and Netgalley for an advanced copy.

I am super privileged and thankful to receive an e-galley from Netgalley!

The way Stuart constructs the novel's environment is remarkable to read, particularly with the balance of nuance and empathy he creates in regards to the questionably ethical behavior that is necessary to survive this unforgiving world. Her places great care into the provenance of socio-economic and political suffering, and the justification of sectarian violence that is in Scotland's history. From gang violence, alcoholism, to teen pregnancy, it is a world that in many ways, reflects our everyday sufferings of capitalism. From his prose, it seems impossible for Stuart to write a dry and callous novel.

However, I have a difficult time digesting why Mungo is molested by the two men. The plot is inevitable, as many LGBTQ+ people know the consistent threat of intimacy and violence that is present in private spaces. Isolated spaces have historically been a beacon for our community, like the reader witnesses with James and Mungo in the doocot, or abusive, like Mungo's experiences on the fishing trip. While it is most likely realistic for his mother to place Mungo carelessly out of her way, I still question the motives on Stuart's device with this plot. Does the reader need to see that this abusive form of heterosexual masculinity is more socially acceptable than the intimate, gay love between Mungo and James, or Chickie's bachelor life? Perhaps, for some readers, but there are plenty of readers who probably enter the novel with this mindset.

Let Glasgow Flourish. That’s the city motto of the setting, once again, of Douglas Stuart’s YOUNG MUNGO, his remarkably dark and resilient follow-up to his award-winning debut, SHUGGIE BAIN. And like the city that nurtured Stuart and all his characters, YOUNG MUNGO becomes the tale of a child trying to flourish, and the people, the things, the events, the economics, the politics, all those family ties, that trip and pull and beat one into submission. A tale of the first breath of love, and the forces that seek to drown it. A story about what it takes to keep your head above water - gasping, grasping, surviving one beat at a time - and daring to believe you deserve love despite all the odds against it and in spite of every indication from others that you are not worthy of it.

The title character is named after the Patron Saint of Glasgow. Saints come in varieties, but they are usually of two kinds: they spent their lives spreading so much love and goodwill towards men that they must have been sent from Heaven Itself, or, they were tested by the fires of Hell Itself and found to be indestructible. Sometimes both. Stuart’s Mungo is on a pilgrim’s path towards a queer identity. To complete his journey, he must battle the devil and lose his innocence. Whether he loses his soul in the process, as so many do, will ultimately determine his fate.

In SHUGGIE BAIN, Stuart gave us a portrait of a mother and son and the journey they would take together. It was a story as much about Agnes Bain’s life, and what brought her so low, as it was about Shuggie’s nascent sexuality and devotion to his flawed, but very sympathetic, mother. It was a novel about addiction and how it sabotages the happiness (and future prospects) of everyone around the person struggling with it. Although that novel was bookended with a slightly older Shuggie, it was essentially the story of a young gay boy’s childhood with an alcoholic parent. That it clicked with so many readers is due in no small part to the relationship between mother and son and what unconditional love means – and what it doesn’t mean, as well. It was about emerging from childhood scarred, but alive. It was the story of a child's determination to make it to the next step, beyond childhood, into the unknown. We don’t know what comes next for Shuggie. But Stuart, rather than writing a sequel, provides us with the next part of the conversation. A part two on the theme, as adolescence fades into adult identity. While many may recognize themselves in a young Shuggie Bain, and while many Shuggies may exist in this harsh world, the path into young adulthood can fork in many directions. Mungo is the story of one of them.

With YOUNG MUNGO, Douglas Stuart focuses his lens squarely on the boy. Yes, on the surface, there are similarities with this novel and his last. It is almost entirely superficial however, and any deeper reading of the two books will find a divergent path taken by Mungo into the wilderness of Scotland, and his future. In terms of both plot and character, MUNGO drives harder into the violence, the poverty, the pain, and the love of a young gay person for another, in a world that won’t love them back. This is a story very much about Mungo. Rather than a co-lead, his mother is one actor in the operatic highs and lows of Mungo's life. Mungo’s mother will not elicit much sympathy here. His older sister is the only person looking out for him, and even her concern has its natural limitations. She is, after all, not his mother.

By making Mungo a teenager on the verge of manhood, but not sure what manhood is supposed to mean or be, Stuart is free to explore Mungo's sexuality in all its beautiful awkwardness, uncertain shyness, longing hunger, and shame. Stuart goes all-in and deftly portrays the love of two young men in juxtaposition with the horror of abuse. I see a confidence in Stuart's writing that he can absolutely reach for whatever peaks or valleys he wants now. Nothing is off limits, nor should it be. With no reticence, the truly ugly side of poverty and violence and bigotry sits, uncomfortably, but necessarily, with the blooming affection of two young people discovering that their dismal world can enjoy flashes of light sometimes too.

What I appreciate the most about Stuart’s writing is how specific, yet totally universal, his observations are of the young gay man’s mind. How one’s identity is so often tarred with slurs. Mungo rehashes them in his head. “Idiot. Weakling. Liar. Poofter. Coward.” It takes a strong will to not believe them and, therefore, not become them. Isolated and afraid, the softhearted and loving individuals are easy prey for almost anything on God’s earth that wishes to pounce on them. Mungo wonders how they know - what does he do, what do they see - that seems to signal to everyone that he can be picked picked off from the crowd. It is only in making that one special connection with one special like-minded boy, with the same good heart, that Mungo is given a shot at being something different and better than his environment would have him be.

Both SHUGGIE and MUNGO have given me a vivid impression of the East End of Glasgow. I've been to Edinburgh, but haven't been to Glasgow yet. (Although it is unlikely as a tourist I'd see what is portrayed so candidly in these novels.) Still, I can see it. Hear it. Feel it. I understand Stuart's Glasgow and I know it, such is the power of his words. But, perhaps more importantly for me as a reader, I am left trembling with my own emotional recognition of home. The poverty. The city streets. The alcoholic parent. The big-hearted devotion to those people incapable of returning it in kind. I grew up in roughly the same period, 3,500 miles away, and yet… my mind reaches across the Atlantic and knows, down to my core, what Stuart is conveying in these pages. Some feelings, particularly those involved in the young gay experience of the 20th Century, are inherently and undeniably true, regards of the language or accent of the speaker.

It is that spark of recognition which make for truly great reading experiences. It's why we read novels in the first place. It's those moments in fiction when you feel like kindred spirits walk the Earth and that maybe, if you are lucky, you encounter each other long enough to tell each other that yes, you are worthy, and yes, we can flourish together.

Beautiful. I devoured this in one sitting - a beautiful sad wonderful book, and I am excited to read everything Douglas Stuart releases in future.

The new book by Douglas Stuart gripped me from the start. The fully rounded characters leap from the page and the dual-timeline approach works well. Mungo is a sympathetic lead whose dysfunctional home life is believably written. The relationships within the book are complex and avoid the trap of siting people on one side of the good/bad divide.
(Copy received via Netgalley in return for an honest review).

Losing my mind over how gorgeous and heartbreaking this novel is. All the characters are complicated and messy and not necessarily good people, and I couldn't stop thinking about them. (Especially Mungo. Oh, sweet wee Mungo!!) Stuart's writing is stunning, evocative, and transportive -- I'd not read his earlier novel, but I absolutely plan to in the future. I can't wait to preorder my copy of this novel and to devour it once again!

Young Mungo is a gritty and visceral read that covers some confronting themes. As such, it may not appeal to all readers, so approach with caution if need be. I haven't read Douglas Stuart's previous novel, so I had no expectations going into this work. I did feel my attention waver here and there; some sections of the book kept me riveted, but through others my mind drifted a bit. However, the characters generally came across well, as did the sense of place and time. Young Mungo had some interesting things to say, and I am glad I read it, but I don't see it as a book I would return to for a reread. Once was good, but once was enough. Overall, I am giving this book 3.5 stars, which I will round up to a four.

I should have waited until January 1st to read this, because now I have a conundrum: Is it one of my top books of 2021, when I read it, or one of my top books of 2022, when it's published?

If I count it as 2021, that gives Douglas Stuart two spots on my top-five-in-2021. (I read Shuggie Bain in 2021 - though it was published in 2020 - so I guess I'm going with read-dates rather than published-dates. OK then.) In case you're interested, Stuart's main competition for those top spots on my list comes from Margaret Atwood and Sarah Winman - two of my all-time favourite authors - and Stephen Hawking. That's some impressive company.

Anyway, back to my thoughts on the book. Well, you'll already have gathered that I adored it. I can safely say that all my the-last-book-was-fabulous-will-this-one-match-up fears were completely unfounded. This has ferocity, softness, violence, humour, rawness, poignancy - all blending to create a stunning piece of writing. Stuart's writing is excellent, his characters (main and minor) are deep and memorable. The dialogue is wonderful, the story is disturbing and heart-breaking and delicate.

If some of that makes this sound like Shuggie 2 - it's not. This is darker and more uncomfortable, and the story, while addressing some of the same issues, reveals them through different experiences, from the perspective of someone at a different stage of his life.

This is a superbly-crafted novel and I am immensely grateful to the author and publishers for the advance copy. Put my name down now for whatever Douglas Stuart writes next, because it will jump immediately to the top of my reading-list.

If only I could, I would give this many more than 5 stars - heartbreaking, breathtaking and very memorable.

Shuggie Bain, Stuart's Booker winning (and SHOULD have been NBA winning. over the definitely inferior Interior Chinatown) debut novel, was my favorite book of 2020, and unless I read something truly astonishing in the next 5 days, his second book is destined to appropriately be my favorite book of this rather bleak year.

Some have criticized the book for being a somewhat pale imitation of the earlier novel, since it does retread some of the same ground: working class Glascow milieu, an awkward queer teenage titular character, an alcoholic mother who comes dangerously close to hijacking the book for herself - even the makeup of the family unit, with three children composed of a violent older brother, a thoughtful middle sister, and the shy younger son is evident - but I heartily disagree.

Because this is also ultimately a very different kettle of fish, with the heart of it being a tender and evocative love story between the two teen boys, and I think shows a maturing of both Stuart's prose style AND his plotting/characterizations. In particular, I was impressed with how 'alive' even very minor characters become under his sure hand: Poor-Wee-Chrissie; Mo-Maw's swain, Jocky; Mrs. Callahan; Mr. Jamieson; Every-Other-Wednesday Nora; even the driver Calum who picks up the hitchhiking Mungo in the penultimate chapter, and the unnamed woman who runs the store at the loch, are specific and unique. And who cares if Stuart sticks to what he knows best? .... many authors seem to rewrite the same book over and over and when his work is as impressively immersive as Stuart's, I say bring on MORE of the same.

I also enjoyed the structure and how well Stuart navigates between the two timeframes, bringing them beautifully together for a final chapter that is nothing less than devastating, yet hopeful. I am not ashamed to admit that tears were shed.

Both this and Shuggie could very well stand having sequels written, and it's a sign of a great book that the author leaves you wanting MORE of his characters, and eager to find out the next chapters in their lives - they are that real to the reader. If the quality of Stuart's writing continues to be of this high caliber, he going to have to make room for more awards on his trophy shelf - I would be amazed if this doesn't garner at LEAST another Booker nomination, and perhaps even take the crown again in 2022. I also predict it will be a smashing critical and popular success when it is published in late April

My heartfelt thanks to LM, Netgalley, and Grove Atlantic for the ARC in exchange for this honest and VERY enthusiastic review.

The new book by the author of Shuggie Bain! As gritty and heartbreaking, but also gorgeously showing the sweet love between two Glaswegian boys.

I’m not really a fan of photo’s on covers. But if a picture fits the story, I can appreciate it. Young Mungo has two covers that together tell the story of fifteen-year-old Mungo so beautifully. I love that both covers represent such a different side of Mungo. The US one shows an angelic and sensitive boy, his head below the surface, seemingly drowning, trapped into the water. The UK one shows two boys kissing, so incredibly intimate and personal, making me feel like I’m almost intruding. This photo (The Cock by Wolfgang Tillmans) is called a sweaty, lively, and joyful presentation of sexuality.

When I read the first sentences, I knew this story would be just as dark and disturbing as Shuggie Bain is. So, I tried to keep my emotions at bay. But I didn’t last long, and soon my feelings poured out of my body. My eyes got wet, I almost slammed on the table in anger, and my stomach contracted. But at other times, the corners of my mouth pulled up, and I had this warm feeling in my chest because Douglas Stewart added such a wonderful layer to this story, one that Shuggie Bain didn’t have: a sweet love story between two fifteen-year-olds who explored their sexuality so tenderly.

Douglas Stewart’s writing is vigorous, profound, and descriptive, and therefore, I could picture a drunk Mo-Maw, Mungo at the loch with those two men, or what was about to happen so well. At times I wanted to scream at Mungo to watch out and stay away because something terrible was going to happen, but Mungo was just such a sweet and likable boy (a loyal dog according to Douglas Stewart) and just too naive. So different from all the others in that masculine working-class environment in Glasgow, a city split between Catholics and Protestants. Different except for James. The gentle and vulnerable love between those boys was the highlight of this story. I loved those first moments when Mungo and James comforted each other, and they made me forget the darkness and the heartbreaking moments for a while.

Just as Shuggie Bain isn’t a story for everyone, neither is this one. It’s disturbing and triggering in so many ways. But because of the tender love between those two boys, Young Mungo felt a little more hopeful to me. That ending … I’d really like to meet them again, for instance, as side characters in Douglas’ next book (which I’d like to be a little less dark), just to know they’re happy and doing okay.

A story like this isn’t one to devour in one sitting. I read this book in small pieces, put it away, hugged my family (or my cats), and then dived in again because I wanted to be back with Mungo. I loved Shuggie Bain and still remember that book so vividly, but Mungo will always have a special place in my heart.

Thank you so much, Grove Atlantic, for allowing me to read Young Mungo early!

What do you say about a book that is very poignant and dark, in which the only light is the love for each other of two fifteen-year-old boys? I can’t put into words my feelings about this story. It’s devastating and heartbreaking with some small glimpses of hope. Without a doubt, it’s a five-star read for me, but it’s not a book I’ll be recommending to students any time soon because it’s just too discomforting for that.

Okay, maybe my expectations were too high after Shuggie Bain, but while Stuart still excells at atmospheric writing and nuanced dialogue, the plot is frustratingly predictable and the main character is simply another version of Shuggie, but a bit older, so the aspect of him realizing that he is gay becomes central to the story. Mungo grows up in 1990's Glasgow, the youngest of three siblings with a neglectful, alcoholic single mother whom he feels responsible for. His older brother is a violent criminal, his sister has an affair with a teacher (the outcome of which is exactly what you expect). Around the siblings, the city and its working class population is still struggling due to de-industrialization, poverty, and hopelessness. When 15-year-old Mungo, a Protestant, falls in love with James, a Catholic, what happens is what you would expect. When his mother sends Mungo to a fishing trip with two pals from the AA so Mungo would man up, what happens is exactly what you would expect (this is no spoiler, this episode starts right at the beginning of the book and is then sprinkled within the chronologically told story of what happened before).

I don't want to make you think that this is a bad book - it's not, and Douglas Stuart is probably incapable of crafting a bad novel, as his talent for psychological writing and scene-setting is just stellar. "Young Mungo" also needs to be applauded for relentlessly depicting the reality of violence against queer people, and the fear that society instills in gay men, the destructive self-hatred it aims to evoke. Douglas does a spectacular job illustrating that, and he also writes impressive scenes of physical intimacy between Mungo and James. Plus to be a fair: Not everything that happens follows a cliched formular, but too much does.

So I have to admit that around 45 % in, when the plot point that I expected from page 2 finally played out, I got really frustrated, and I mean the kind of frustration that sets in when you show up to love something and hype it up, but then you just can't, and it makes you upset. This is all so predicatble and so close to "Shuggie Bain": Shuggie and Mungo are neglected working-class children in a world changed by Thatcherism, their alcoholic mothers aim to re-live the youth they feel they've been cheated out of, Shuggie and Mungo realize they're gay in a hostile, violent environment dominated by toxic masculinity, they want to belong, but they feel responsible for their mothers and are also (understandably) afraid. "Young Mungo" would easily have been a four-star-read, if it wasn't a version of "Shuggie Bain".

There are some great ideas in the book, like naming the protagonist after the patron saint of Glasgow (Saint Kentigern, known as Saint Mungo) who restored a robin to life after his classmates had killed it, and then letting James run a dovecot, and there are also some twists, but argh, this just isn't enough. Strangely, the book reminded me of Hanya Yanagihara, as Stuart pushes Mungo's suffering so far that you deem this Saint Mungo to be a martyr, and it's all a bit much - granted, I loved A Little Life, but this book is so intentionally over the top that it counts an experiment in extreme pychological wriring and you might even debate whether there's a camp aspect to it, which isn't the case in "Young Mungo".

So will I read Stuart's next novel? Absolutely, 100 %, yes. But I hope that he will trust his talent and stray away from the formula that made his debut novel such a success, because he does not need to stick to Shuggie-like characters, he's clearly not a limited writer ike that. His ambition should also be limitless, as Douglas Stuart can deliver. He's got everything it takes to have a long, exceptional career, so why not be bolder in the choices he makes?