My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the audiobook of Young Mungo. This is my unbiased and honest review.

This is the first book I have read by this author and I have obtained his other book, Snuggie Bain, after reading this one.

This is a raw and powerful book. It is the story of 15 year old Mungo, a closeted, queer Protestant boy in Glasgow, who lives with his older sister and his unreliable alcoholic mother. He also has an older brother who is a violent gang leader, brutal and relentless. The story opens with Mungo being taken on a fishing trip to a remote loch by two older men. Then the narrative proceeds to switch back and forth between the events leading up to that fishing trip and the fishing trip itself. The structure works, although it was a bit confusing when it first switched timelines. The format give the book a very ominous tone, especially as the flashback timelines build the story, and the fishing trip takes a sudden disturbing turn. You can feel the overlying menacing undercurrent of the fishing story and the dread grows as the chapters progress.

Mungo is a kind and good natured boy, caring and trusting, aware of the beauty and glimmers of goodness in the world. He's been dealt a rough hand--his mother is neglectful, self-centered, needy. His brother is menacing and abusive, cruel and unforgiving. His sister is his staunchest ally but she is not planning on being around forever, not if she can help it. His unflinching care and love for his family shows time and time again in the narrative, despite the abuse, betrayal and cruelty he is subject to.

There is such a bleakness to this Thatcher-era narrative. The descriptions of the tenements, the neighbors, the city itself, the devastation of the economic woes of the individuals and the repurcussions on the family and their society as a whole reverberate through the book.

The bright spot in the book is Mungo's developing relationship with James, the Catholic boy who lives in Mungo' neighborhood. Their tentative, growing friendship that transforms into so much more is so tenderly and achingly well written--intimacy and friendship, companionship and attraction. And hope. Their relationship gives them both a bit of hope until things begin to unravel and the darkness overwhelms them both.

The ending brings a revival of that hope. It's open ended but overall the book ends more positively than I might have expected based on what came before.

This is a powerful, heart-breaking book. Take the content warnings seriously: beating, murder, partner violence, rampant homophobia, rape, statutory rape, intense bullying. This book stayed with me. I finished it days ago and I'm still thinking about it. The characters are so well-written and three dimensional. The story is riveting and at times both hard to read and hard to put down.

I really appreciated the narrator, who has a native Scottish accent that really enhances the listening experience. It made it so much more immediate and atmospheric, to hear it read in such an authentic way.

This book will make you cry and break your heart but it is definitely a stunning work. Memorable and heartbreaking.

four and a half stars

This follow up to 2020's Booker prize winning 'Shuggie McBain' does not disappoint. Mungo is from the same era, born in the 70s and raised in a Glasgow tenement block. When he meets James Jamieson, an older Catholic boy, they fall in love and arrange to run away when Mungo turns sixteen. This is an angst driven narrative, delivered in waves of eloquent description and detail. Stuart takes you back and forth in Mungo's life and uncovers all of the tense frustration and interaction, with overwrought conversations and intense observation of various characters. The style of writing lends itself to the Glaswegian dialect, slipping into slang and abbreviation. The audio book was a great way to get into the story, superbly narrated by Chris Reilly.

Many thanks to NetGalley for the audio copy.

Brave and poignant, courageous and much needed. Firstly the cover, yes, just YES! The world needs more covers like this. I kinda wanna head to the supermarket and spread out the books across the shelves.

It👏is👏emotional👏 so be prepared. If you've read Shuggie Bain and felt yaself having to take little breaks coz of the kinda emotional turmoil, you will defo have the same issue with this. And it's not a bad thing, it just sucks you right in and you'll 100% become invested.

The character development is just so on point, so believable and so rich. I mean I was expecting it to be good, but it far surpassed 'good', it was (I'm gona sound so cheesey and cliche) a literary marvel. Covering homophobia, masculinity, alcoholism, domestic violence and poverty it isn't for the faint hearted and isn't a light read.

I'd describe it as knarly, gritty and raw, set in a Glasgow council estate. It was a book for a Saturday afternoon, house empty, time to focus and reflect. I don't think it should be a one sitting fly through though, it needs time, and you will need tissues.

Read it, yes. Take your time yes. It's all encompassing and will shake you up a bit. If you can grab the audio because it proper enriched an already excellent narrative.

The story opens with Mungo on a fishing trip with two men he doesn’t know. His mother has sent him away to become a man after growing concerned with the relationship he had formed with a neighbouring boy named James.

Between this messed up fishing trip and Mungos messed up family life this book was a little too much for me.
For the vast majority of this book I wanted to stop reading. A little passed the halfway point I did start to get into the story, but it was too little, too late and I couldn’t get behind this book.

I had really high expectations after hearing all of the pre-publication hype, but after listening to it (which at influence my take on it) I thought it was so-so. I wasn’t impressed by the narrator and found him boring and his strong Scottish accent hard to understand at times. This didn’t help lift the story which I found to be damp and depressing. There were moments of great interest, but overall I was not super impressed about this twist on the classic Romeo and Juliet (but I found it à la West Side Story).

I would like to thank @netgalley and RB media for the opportunity to listen to it and give my honest feedback.

Absolutely stunning writing, an absolute must read if you enjoyed Stuart's last book 'Shuggie Bain'. Listening to the audiobook filled it with even more emotion and setting. The accent and voice made me feel as if I was being told the story by Mungo' himself and god what a heart wrenching story, that somehow still manages to be incredibly beautiful.

Thank to net galley for the arc!

Holy tears. Big ouchie. This story is heartbreaking and painful and also very memorable. I didn't know what to expect since I hadn't read the author's previous work but I was blown away. This could easily be triggering for some and it was for me too but also able to power through to see the small hints if joy.

I struggled to read Shuggie Bain in lockdown 2020 after the loss of my sister and here I am again, 2 years later, and struggling to read Stuart's next offering.
I should have known it would be bleak. I listened to the audio of Young Mungo and whilst I liked the narrator's voice, I had to rewind the first chapters several times as my attention kept wandering.
The writing is excellent, but the plot and pace of the story is really slow and the audio is 13 hours! I like to speed up my books as normal speed is too slow and it means I can fit more books in!
I'm struggling to read a lot of different books lately, and I'm hoping that will change.

I recieved an ARC of the audiobook via NetGalley :)

Young Mungo was unlike any other book I've read. It takes place in Glasgow during the 80s and I struggled with adapting to the accent of the narrator. The accent helps built the atmosphere but could make it quite hard for readers with English as their second language to understand.

I loved the tender love story; the boys feeling safe with one another even when everyone around them was toxic and abusive. It felt like reading about a small light surrounded by so much darkness. The writing style was beautiful.

This is one of these books that doesn't just have one very sad incident: the whole novel is depressing. From the violence Mungo grows up with to unwanted teenage pregnancies to being surrounded by extreme homophobia to so much more. If you want to read this, make sure you're in a good place as this will certainly drag down your mood ;-;

CW: sexual assault, murder, violence, homophobia, alcohol addiction, abusive behavior

Stuart delivered a good narrative for a heartwreching story. But I found the story are so slow, so it's bored me so much. The characters are similar with his previous work (Shuggie Bain), so the story also predictable. But, it's still gives me chills and through the pages my hates towards Mungo's Mo-Maw are getting bigger and bigger.

This was one of the most heartbreaking books I've read in a while. Mungo can't catch a break in this story told in two different timelines, so exquisitely written I couldn't stop listening to it even with how much I hurt. Mungo and his friendship with James wasn't front and center but it was the main theme of almost everything that happened to him. The pain and suffering was a bit too much most times, but the way the narration held you tight, was hard to get away. I really enjoyed it a lot.

Format: audiobook
Author: Douglas Stuart ~ Title: Young Mungo ~ Narrator: Chris Reilly
Content: 4.5 stars ~ Narration: 5 stars

Mungo is a 15-year-old teenager. He never knew his father, and his alcoholic mother, Mo-Maw, is rarely at home. Mungo has two siblings: Hamish and Jodie. Each of the children is different and is coping with the situation differently. Hamish is driven by violence, Jodie is ambitious and wants to go to university, and the youngest, Mungo, is a naive and obedient teen.

In one word: breathtaking. And I mean this in multiple meanings. Young Mungo is a well-written novel, but also it is sad, brutal, and frustrating. There are two different timelines, a story jumps from the camping trip to before that. The novel is slow-paced, especially in the first half. If you are looking for a heartwarming queer love story, this novel is not for you. The love between a protestant and a catholic boy is just part of the story. More than that novel deals with abuse, violence, and child neglect. So no, this, in its essence, is not a beautiful (love) story.

If you are used to American accent, you will need some time to get used to the thick Scottish accent. But after a while, I learned it is the accent that makes this audiobook even better. So, excellent narration by Chris Reilly.

Thanks to Recorded Books for the ALC and this opportunity! This is a voluntary review and all opinions are my own.

BOOK REVIEW
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 “Young Mungo” – Douglas Stuart (audiobook narrated byChris Reilly)
🎉 Happy publication day to this one, and thanks to #netgalley for sending me an audiobook copy.
🌈 Douglas Stuart returns to 1990s Glasgow with “Young Mungo”, another book very clearly centred on his experience growing up in working-class Scotland. Furthermore, we are once against centred on a closeted young man, Mungo Hamilton, in many ways similar to the eponymous character of Stuart’s first book “Shuggie Bain”: he grows up alone and looking for love and attention in the shadow of an alcoholic mother, Mo-Maw, and siblings who are at best dealing with their own problems (Mungo’s driven and studious sister Jodie) and at worst violently psychopathic (brother and gang leader Hamish).
🏕 Whereas Shuggie’s fatal flaw was devotion to a perennially self-destructive loved one, here Mungo is just too gentle in a macho, violent world of fights between Protestants and Catholics, of spousal abuse and random attacks. Attempts to toughen him up or “turn him straight” end badly, and cumulates in the events of the parallel timeline, when Mungo is sent on a camping trip with two people from his mother’s AA meetings, which takes a horrendous turn (I had to pause the audiobook after one particular scene just to breathe, and I’m not easily put aback.)
🕊 The one light in Mungo’s life is James, a Catholic boy with a dovecot and a soul similar to James. As their friendship turns to more, Mungo sees a way out of the world around him, a chance to leave the rage-filled space he has found himself in and build a new life with someone he loves. Does he achieve this? Well, it’s a Douglas Stuart book…
🤔 I have seen some very odd criticisms of the audiobook (complaining the narrator has a Glaswegian accent, and hardly a strong one – I never found Chris Reilly incomprehensible in any way, and I’m a soft Southerner). Some says it shows a miserable view of working-class life, where there’s no joy and everything is torture. All I can say to this is that having spoken to a couple of Scottish people who grew up in similar spots and they described Shuggie Bain as “startlingly accurate”. I trust their views. Not every book needs to be positive, and if you have complaints about the marketing of the book, maybe direct it at the publisher and not the book and author?
⭐ 💛I’m very torn on my final thoughts of this book, because I am aware that it’s dark and flawed, it holds your hand and overexplains, and has superfluous stories that don’t end up going anywhere. However, I listened to the whole audiobook, all 14 hours, in about 3 days, using every free moment I had to get back into the tale that Stuart has created. I loved this book, as bleak and grim as it can be, because Stuart knows how to tell a story, however predictable, with grace and care and poetry. “Shuggie Bain” was my book of 2021, and I think this is better. Yeah, I said it. Just go in prepared for a rough ride.

I had to listen to the audiobook on MUCH slower speeds than I usually do, given the thick Scottish accent of the narrator. This book reminded me of a Little Life, in that it was written beautifully but absolutely wrecked me with its depictions of trauma. Chock ful of triggering scenes, it was a heartbreaking book with moments of simple love.

I enjoyed the audiobook narrator quite a bit, but wasn't really a fan of the book.

Despite being well-written, I found the first half of the book to be incredibly slow and the second half to be bordering on trauma porn, and it really didn't make me feel much other than crushed, the characters were given too little joy, and I didn't feel it was for any purpose.

5 star read!

Young Mungo is an excellent example of why I love literature. This immersive, intense novel utterly destroyed me emotionally as I was reading, but the beauty of the writing and the story made the heartbreak worth it in the end.

Highly recommend! One of the best reads of 2022.

See note to publisher.
I only had download for a day before it was archived and I did not have a chance to get more than a few pages in. I was very much liking the narrator and the writing style but do not feel I know enough to give an intelligent opinion beyond that. I will buy the book or audiobook and enjoy that way. Thank you for Gina me a chance to review it.

What a wonderful, devastating book! Seriously heartbreaking, but powerful and beautifully written. A story about violence, expectations, and figuring out the kind of person you want to be. I had to listen to the audiobook on a lower speed setting than usual due to the narrator's accent, but I really did enjoy hearing the story in Scottish dialect.

Touching, vivid and brutal.

Teenager Mungo, with an alcoholic mother and gangland brother, must find his own way in post-Thatcher Glasgow.

On themes of toxic masculinity, social inequality, homophobia, alcoholism and sectarianism.

Stuart’s second published novel was written before his Man Booker-winning debut, Shuggie Bain, was released. Young Mungo is not a sequel, yet the central characters in both are of a type, the timeline follows directly on from one to the other, and they are set in impoverished districts of Glasgow. Inevitably, the similarities lead to comparisons. Both have saint-named characters, Agnes and Mungo, whose lives mimic those of their namesake in some way. Stuart’s skill as a writer is exemplified by his use of imagery, particularly where it relates to the saints – a nominative determinism of sorts, to underpin key moments in the narrative. Both novels capture the sensory and emotional worlds, as well as dialogue, with razor-sharp precision. However, where I couldn’t put down Shuggie Bain, I found I had to do so with Young Mungo on several occasions, just because it is so grim (and Shuggie Bain is hardly a bowl of cherries).

Ultimately, the similarities marred my enjoyment of this novel. Let’s hope the third novel breaks from Glasgow tenements and alcoholic mothers.

I listened to the audio edition, superbly narrated by Chris Reilly.

With thanks to NetGalley and RB Media for the audio ARC.

This novel was hopeful at times, but also absolutely heart shattering. Stuart tells this vivid story through fully formed three-dimensional characters, gripping dialogue, and lyrical prose that will pull on your heartstrings.

Young Mungo is a 15-year-old Protestant boy who lives in a working-class neighborhood in 1990s Glasgow. He is surrounded by poverty, violence, sectarianism, and drug and alcohol abuse.

Mungo’s older brother, Hamish, leads a gang of young men and boys that reminded me of a violent Scottish Lord of the Flies. His older sister Judie is brilliant, and his mother is an alcoholic who likes to party and disappear for days.

Tender young Mungo craves love and attention from his mother, but she only craves love and attention from other men, and she hates being called “mother.” Feeling unwanted was a common thread that ran through nearly every character.

The story alternates between two timelines. One timeline follows Mungo and his budding forbidden romance with a Catholic boy named James who raises racing pigeons. The second timeline tells the story of the fishing trip Mungo’s mother forces him to go on with two men she met at AA. The two timelines coalesce in the end.

This audiobook was a heavy, gritty, raw, emotional listen. I was captivated, and furious. Heartbroken but hopeful. Stuart has a way of interlacing brutal scenes that display the dark underbelly of humanity, with simple yet hopeful scenes that highlight the very best of it.

I wept.

I was captivated and gutted by this bittersweet story. ***Checking the TWs is a must ⬇️.

Thank you to Netgalley and RB Media for this audiobook ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Young Mungo - Douglas Stuart
4.5/5⭐️

***TW: rape, substance abuse, domestic violence, homophobia, abortion, child abuse, neglect, pedophilia, abandonment