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 Stuart 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. In spite of everything, Mungo adores Mo-Maw (as Shuggie Bain did his mother), and when drink changes her, he’s the one who cleans her up and gets her to bed. The kids then refer to her as Tattie-bogle, which is the Scottish word for scarecrow. Update 21-12-21: Just approved on NetGalley, so I'll know what I'll be reading this Christmas Break! Danish: Unge Mungo. Translated by Signe Lyng. Copenhagen: Politiken. 30 August 2022. ISBN 9788740078916.

I do not know how this little review will turn out and I do not wish to censor myself. After finishing this book and crying terribly I grabbed my beloved and asked him to take me out for a long night drive and I listened to slow Arabic love songs and held his hand. Yer mammy felt us all about that mess ye got yourself into with those dirty Fenian bastards. Catholics, man. Butter widnae melt. Mungo had been trying not to think about it”. It was a funny thing to observe; near strangers who had shared some of their deepest shames, their most vulnerable moments, were now gathering to make small talk about the weather or if 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. The whole book was very hard to read in the best way possible. You definitely have to be in the right frame of mind for it.

Filled with heavy issues - dark as dark ever was - this novel is incredibly seductive…..encompassed by the mastery-passionate-storytelling. Spanish: Un lugar para Mungo, lit.'A Place for Mungo'. Translated by Francisco González López. Barcelona: Random House. ISBN 9788439741442. 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.

Jodie felt the floor tilt underneath her. Like a gable end slated for demolition, the front facade of her fell away and the private contents of her life rolled out. She was being torn down, and every mismatched bed sheet in her mind was to be exposed for all to see." I MIGHT have liked this a tad better if I had read it. But as an audiobook, it was a dud. The only reason I grabbed this was because I had heard so much about ‘Shuggie Bain’. I can’t make a comparison between the two because I haven’t read ‘Shuggie Bain’. (And now I am certain that I never will.) Krishnan, Nikhil (23 March 2022). "Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart review: Shuggie Bain grows up, and comes out". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 23 March 2022 . Retrieved 13 October 2022.There are many wonderful characters, including kindly neighbours who love Mungo. There is also politics. A teacher tries to explain to Jodie’s class the reason for the violence and despair. In a second timeline, his mother sends him off with two of her “friends” from Alcoholics Anonymous. Suffice it to say, they are not on the wagon and their intentions are not pure. I couldn’t begin to understand the mother’s reasoning. A key challenge for the author I think will be to show that he can move on in his writing (in his third novel which I believe is to be set in the Hebrides) but for now this is an excellent companion piece to his Booker a prize winning book.

Stuart began writing Young Mungo in 2016, after setting aside the finished manuscript of his first novel, Shuggie Bain, due to frustration that he was unable to find a publisher for it. [1] He finished the novel in 2020, before winning the Booker Prize for his first novel. [2] At the time, the novel was tentatively titled Loch Awe and was described by Stuart in an interview as, "a love story between two young men who are separated by territorial gangs, on opposing sectarian lines." [3] The title Loch Awe referenced the fishing trip that Mungo takes in the novel and, according to the author, was changed to Young Mungo to denote the protagonist, the same approach as in Shuggie Bain, as Stuart claimed the two works formed a single "tapestry" alongside this novel. [1]

The novel opens with Mungo Hamilton, a 15-year-old Scottish teenager, preparing for a trip with two men who his mother met at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, St. Christopher and Gallowgate, who plan to take him fishing to learn how to be a man. Months earlier, Mungo was living at home being cared for by his sister Jodie, with the constant threat of being taken away by social services in the absence of his mother, Maureen. One day, he sees James, a Catholic boy who lives across the street from him and who built a dovecote to raise poultry, through his window. The two become friends and soon develop a romance, which becomes their first relationship that does not involve constant acts of violence. A touching, tender tale of boy meets boy in the bleak tenements of Glasgow . . . Superb' – The Times ‘Best Summer Reading’ Nicola Sturgeon Few novels are as gutsy and gut-wrenching as Young Mungo in its depiction of a teenage boy who finds love amid family dysfunction, community conflict and the truly terrible predations of adults. Vividly realised and emotionally intense, this scorching novel is an urgent addition to the new canon of unsung stories. The prose is vivid and clear and superb. The dialogue zings with authenticity. The psychologies are startingly sound and the sociology unabashedly hyper-realistic. The connection to emotions is genuine and painful and the breath is shallow and hurried. My thanks to RB Media and NetGalley for the ALC of “Young Mungo”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the audiobook. I’m very sorry this worked out so badly.