How wonderful to see another new author coming through with such a superb and hugely powerful first book? A story full of adventure, romance, tension and anguish - my students are going to adore this!

Glasgow Boys initially evokes comparisons to gritty tales like Shuggie Bain, Young Mungo, and Boys Don’t Cry with its setting and premise, but it ultimately diverges into a narrative filled with beauty and hope rather than darkness.

The writing style took some adjustment for me. The use of third person present tense, coupled with short, blunt sentences and chapters, felt somewhat distant at first. However, as the story progressed, I found myself drawn into its unique rhythm.

The story revolves around Finlay, a socially awkward, closeted student, and Banjo, a hot-headed, athletic boy. Despite their differences, they share a deep past as close friends in a group care home. Their relationship faltered, and now, separated and isolated, they navigate their lives yearning for connection and affection, each struggling with their own emotional needs.

4.5/5.

I used to be a scout leader: Finlay and Banjo reminded me of the boys I met. The wanted to be love but at their condition and the first step was accepting them without asking any change.
It's a poignant, heartbreaking and life affirming story. There's darkness and there's light.
A wonderful novel that made me cry and smile.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

A sweet and ultimately very moving account of the relationship between two boys who meet while in care. Finlay and Banjo are both fragile and damaged by their early upbringing, making their friendship vulnerable to fracture and misunderstanding. When we meet them, their shared life is in the past and they are both embarking on new friendships and relationships alone. They have lost touch with each other, but their connection hasn’t been forgotten by either boy, and each looks back at it with regret and shame. As the book progresses, Finlay and Banjo struggle to grow in their new lives, but always have the other one at the back of their minds. This is a sensitivity written book that works for an adult reader but also could be recommended for YA readers.

Glasgow Boys by Margaret McDonald

Wow, what a debut this is. I absolutely loved and I'm just annoyed I didn't get to it sooner.

Finlay and Banjo were in care together when they were young, forming a close bond. They lose touch but both miss their friendship. This is a beautiful story about friendship, hope and family. It made me so emotional but it is so worth it. I highly recommend it and know the characters will stay with me!

Thank you to Faber books, the author and netgalleyuk for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Glasgow Boys is available now.

#irishbookstagram #scottishreader #glasgowboys

This book was so heartbreakingly gorgeous - my heart ached for Finlay and Banjo as they tried to process their traumatic past and it had me in tears a few times as they found love and happiness in the new friends and family and relationships they created.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the chance to read this arc.

From GoodReads:
I absolutley loved this book and absolutlely fell in love with both characters.
Two very different boys in the care system coming together and finding a much needed friend.
This is not a romance as such but a swee,t sweet book about friends and finding your place in a sometimes cruel world.
Read this

i was expecting Glasgow Boys by Margaret McDonald to be a bit different, i found the prose very clunky and green.

A compelling, thought-provoking debut for lovers of Andrea Arnold movies and Douglas Stuart novels.

Both Finlay and Banjo felt so real and I loved learning about who they are through the people that love them. Here, McDonald is great at looking at the world through the power of interpersonal connections and found family. As devastating as it was at times, Glasgow Boys was also an extremely hopeful read. It had similar themes and tone to Young Mungo, but definitely less heavy.

I loved how, at times, McDonald subverts your expectations as a reader as I feel the story is much more authentic to reality. My only criticism is that I felt some of the peripheral characters were underdeveloped, like Akash, which impacted my investment in certain aspects of the narrative.

I ran to review and give this 5 stars. I read the whole book in 5 hours and cried my way through the last 100 pages. No, sobbed, I SOBBED my heart out to the last 100 pages.

Beautiful story. Loved the characters.

Oh my gosh, Glasgow Boys broke my heart into a million pieces and then put it back together again.

Finlay is 18 and in his first year studying nursing at Glasgow University, reliant on his scholarship to (barely) cover his living expenses but not wanting to disclose his status as a care-leaver to the institution.

Banjo is 17 and starting at his umpteenth new school after moving to East Kilbride to live with new foster carers.

Their stories in the current day intertwine with their experiences three years previously in a group home, as the reader slowly learns why they no longer speak.

Glasgow Boys is a powerful, and powerfully moving, story which should be required reading for any politician making funding decisions that affect young people in care or leaving care. The tenacity required by both boys to simply survive - and their constant vulnerability should just one part of their life 'fail' - is brilliantly articulated. I loved this tender book - highly recommended.

Glasgow Boys was a touching and terrific YA debut from a bold voice that I will certainly keep listening to.

McDonald seized my heart with this gritty, raw and relatable book that just soared. Few YA contemporary books have stuck in my head quite like this one did. It is frank and often brutally honest in its depiction of the themes explored. I loved how it explored class, the care system and the bonds we forge in life. Also running through the book is an exploration of sexuality and relationships that was again characteristically honest and nuanced. It is a story of finding yourself and owning your place in the world. McDonald is not afraid to go into the gritty parts of life, but the core of the story always remains with some light and hope.

The characterisation was off the charts as well. Finlay and Banjo have come from care and some of the worst circumstances in life. They are such vulnerable young men just trying to survive and find a place in the world that will accept and love them. McDonald gives them such strong and distinctive narrative voices and you fall in love with both of them instantly. In particular, the use of dialect from McDonald adds a layer to their narration that hooks you in even further. Both are flawed and McDonald keeps them authentic in their messiness and their mistakes. However they are both deeply loving and wonderful people. Their character arcs over the course of the book are nothing short of astounding. McDonald just imbues their story with so much raw emotion, but it is ultimately one full of joy and love and hope.

Glasgow Boys was raw and riveting in its vulnerability, McDonald carves out a story ultimately of love and hope against the odds. She has certainly made a name for herself here with me.

This was an emotional and heart wrenching story. I really enjoyed it and loved the characters of Finlay and Banjo. I also loved that it was set in Glasgow and that Banjo spoke in a broad Glaswegian accent as far as the writing went. As a Scottish person who had lived in the south for many years, the title of the book was what attracted me to it.

Banjo and Finlay met in a children’s care home and gradually became really close. They formed a tight bond and understood each other. They looked out for each other until something happened that drove a huge gap between them and they never saw each other again.

Fast forward to when they were 17 and 18 and the story continues from both of their perspectives. Banjo is in sixth form at school and still struggles to form and maintain any kind of friendships or relationships. Finlay is at Glasgow university doing a nursing degree and is struggling to keep up as he has to work to afford to live and eat. He too struggles with allowing people to get close to him and keeps his personal life a secret.

Both boys have had parents abandon them in one way or another and then move through the care system carrying a huge weight on their shoulders. The story really makes you feel for them and what they have gone through in their childhood.

A great read. Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an advance copy of this book in return for an honest review.

3.5 stars

I actually really enjoyed this. It’s a simple, no frills story but still quite impactful and has its own charm. I enjoyed both Finlay and Banjo as characters. I would say sometimes their perspectives did blend together and weren’t as distinct as I normally prefer, but at no point did I wish I was in the other’s perspective which is a great win for a dual-perspective story. At some stages I did feel like the story was being driven a lot by the romantic relationships (especially Banjo’s) but they each came to value other forms of love and belonging as well (friendships, familial ties). I also do think it would have been nice to have them talk a bit more with each other about their past and that big event that led to them going separate ways, since it did impact them a lot and was built up in each other’s perspectives.

Well I just found my favourite book of the year so far!

Glasgow boys is a touching story about friendship, love and family. Banjo and Finlay are two incredibly crafted characters that will worm their way into your heart and squeeze. I cried a lot of tears in the last half, some happy and some sad. I finished the book feeling full of hope and love. It's a story I'll remember fondly for a long time.

I definitely recommend this one for fans of books like Shuggie Bain and Boys Don't Cry.

'Glasgow Boys' paints a complex picture of male adolescents - its highs, lows, and everything in between. I enjoyed the nods to the two main protagonists's earlier childhood together as well as their current lives spent apart. I thought the novel touched on darker topics such as the realities of being in care/a care leaver with nuance and heart, with plenty of lighter comic relief too. These characters didn't just live within the book, but within me, too, when I was reading it. I thought it set the tone perfectly for young adults but was also very much enjoyed by this not-so-young adult. Really recommend.

“Finley’s powerless to do anything but laugh so hard, for so long, it feels as though he’s setting something free.”

Wow, I fell in love with Glasgow Boys as soon as I started reading it. McDonald does a really great job of writing such honest, funny, and moving characters. I fell in love with our two protagonists from the start, I did also want to wrap them up and make sure they were safe and loved and looked after forever.

This was a great, quick paced read. I loved the dual perspectives, the flashbacks – both were great devices and aided the story super well. I laughed and cried through this book, especially towards the end. Banjo and Findley were excellent, their stories gut wrenching, raw, beautiful, and moving.

An absolute must-read. I can’t get my head around this being a debut. Margaret McDonald, take a bow!

Glasgow Boys follows two boys as they reach the crucial stage between childhood and adulthood. 18-year-old Finlay is starting a nursing degree at Glasgow University, while 17-year-old Banjo is in his final year of school. If you don’t instantly fall in love with both of these boys then you might need to check your heart is in working order. Although very different, both boys have a fractured past with negligent parents, spending their formative years in foster care and group homes. Finlay’s trauma translates into isolation, while Banjo’s becomes a living, breathing, rage-filled beast. At one time they balanced each other out and started to feel that there was hope in human connection, but single moment changes everything and when we meet them, the boys are no longer in each other’s lives.

What I love so much about this book, aside from the impeccable writing, is the intimacy McDonald allows us to build with her two main characters, making us care deeply for them and their futures. It is a book that delves deep into trauma and doesn’t shy away from the events that caused Finlay and Banjo’s pain, yet is at the same time filled to bursting with joy and hope. It challenges toxic masculinity head-on and places LGBTQ+ characters front and center without too much fanfare, which is the best way to normalize queerness.

Although definitely suitable and accessible to mature teen readers, this new adult novel is reminiscent to me of Young Mungo and Demon Copperhead, two of my favourite reads of recent years. What these three novels have in common, and what I think we need more of in popular fiction, is that they revolve around male characters whose vulnerability and tenderness is what leads endears them to the reader and turns them into the heroes of their own stories.

I finished this book last night and my head is still full of the characters. Talk about all the feels. I am also really sad to have had to leave the characters behind as I got a wee bit emotionally involved with them and their lives. I read the last few pages behind tear filled eyes...
So... Finlay and Banjo knew each other when they shared a room in a group care home when they were 15 and 14. Both from very different backgrounds and both pretty broken, they eventually formed a close bond. A bond that was broken irreparably by something bad that happened.
Fast forward 3 years and Finlay, now 18, has just started a Nursing degree at Glasgow Uni. He has come straight from care so had no one and nothing and, mainly due to the incident of three years ago, still has issue around people and trust. Banjo is now 17 and has just moved into a new foster home and, joy of joys, is starting a new school. But his issues from the past are also still unresolved and, well, mainly spill out of him as anger, often with violent repercussions.
Told in the present, as dual narrative, we follow them as Finlay tries to navigate uni, work, placement, and assignments, and Banjo similarly with schoolwork, running, work, and foster parents, both also navigating the choppy waters of first love, with flashbacks from the past, the author weaves a very emotional tale which held me hostage for the duration, reading way past my bedtime to finish it.
The story in the past starts with the two boys meeting and how their friendship developed. Told chronologically, it is drip fed into the present day narrative at exactly the right moments to both complement and progress the present day story being told. Parts of it were harrowing, and I do admit to sobbing at certain places. But then there's also some really great uplifting scenes and, also, some rather funny moments, which kept the book from getting too dark.
I took to both the boys right from the off. Yes I wanted to mother them, to hold them, to say it will all be OK. I felt so much for them, but also pride as they were both trying to do the best with what they had. I was also intrigued as to what could possibly have happened in the past to have affected them so much. But I'm not going to expand on that any further. Suffice to say, the fallout was still affecting them three years later so...
I initially had mixed opinions on the ending though. Not how it ended, more when it ended. I originally thought that I would have loved to have seen what happened beyond where the author stopped. But then again, having thought about it some more, I think it ended at exactly the right time. Any more would have possibly undone all the emotion that had gone before and made it all a bit twee. Suffice to say though, I was very sad when I finished the book and thought of all the characters I had to say goodbye to. Not just Finlay and Banjo, but their families and friends too. Every single character was perfect, so easy to connect to, both good and bad and all things in between. But I know that this will be a book I will go back to and re-read in the future. It takes a special book to make me say that, and this is definitely a special book. And... blow me down - It's only a blooming debut book. That has knocked me for six... And also made me very very excited to see what the author serves up for next time.
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

What a hugely emotional and beautiful book. It’s redundant to say this is “like Shuggie Bain”, and also unfair - it is wholly its own book, with wonderful characters in Banjo and Finlay!

Both battling demons, both angry and without anywhere to place that anger except out into the world.

This is raw and yet fluid storytelling, I couldn’t stop reading even though it was making me ache. I couldn’t put it down, read it over one weekend and was rooting for a happy ending.

Really can’t believe this is a debut, and how beautifully the themes of masculinity and trauma are explored through these characters.