Title of the Book: Angela's Ashes
Author: Frank McCourt
# of Pages: 363
Star Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆
Review: You'd Be Missing Out

Do you want to read chapters on chapters that motivate you to complete your goals, dreams, and strive with ambition no matter how hard it gets? Do you want to understand how it could be worse and someone got through? In Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt I truly learned the definition of being grateful. Frank had a difficult, unpromising upbringing but didn’t allow that to hold him back rather allowed it to be a motivator for success. Everyone’s life gets hard but it’s how you perceive and learn from it and I understand that now.

Starting from page one, you can tell this is not going to be a lighthearted, joyful piece but a underappreciated life story. Then, you start wondering how have I never heard of Frank McCourt? How has no one else been so appalled by this unfortunate lifestyle? I will recommend this story throughout the rest of my life because I know everyone struggles with their own battles and this book allows you to appreciate that life may not be as bad as it seems. I have always had a goal in life to make sure no one ever feels alone or unwelcome when I am around because that makes someone’s life so much harder and when you have the power to make someone’s life more enjoyable, why wouldn’t you take advantage of that? Civilians in Frank’s community who didn’t have it much better and knew what he was struggling with treated him and his family poorly, even worse than they treated anybody else because they didn’t have money. After reading about the treatment he received his whole life, it just made me want to enhance and enforce that goal more and more into my everyday life.

This book has a different writing style that gives you the feeling as if you’re actually reading his thoughts and that was special to me because I wanted to understand how he thought and I was glad to see how he actually probably wrote when he was younger since he was literate but not fully. When you are reading about his family who had a dad that let alcoholism control his life to where he eventually abandoned them, you appreciate the people in your life whether they are related or not because they stuck around. When you see how he thought about particular subjects but was told it was sin to think a certain way, you appreciate your freedom of thought. Then, when you think it will get better for him he ends up at an abusive cousin’s house but doesn’t have much choice on anywhere else to go, you can either relate and learn from him or you appreciate your environment. Either way, I recommend this book for anyone living because you will have new, different perspective that will help when you run into new, different life situations.

If you read this memoir, you will hopefully have a deeper appreciation for life like I do. I also have a deeper appreciation for Frank McCourt and plan to read one of his other books, Teacher Man that continues off of Angela’s Ashes and continues to educate me on his lifelong journey.