“Angela’s Ashes” was a great book with outstanding writing. This memoir engages the reader and leaves the reader with their mouth opened wanting more. It was depressing though. He goes through extreme poverty, alcoholism, unemployment, getting hit by teachers, sickness, puberty, religion, and death. The narrator is Frank McCourt who is looking back at his childhood. This is a story of an Irish-American who was born in New York who goes back to Ireland with his mother, father, and four brothers after his new born sister’s death.

His life is not much different than many others still living today, which is something I liked about his story was that I found some things in common with him. He is Catholic, he was on the dole which is government help, his father was unemployed, he has siblings, he’s the oldest, he wants to have fun, and wants to help out his family. I enjoyed that we had things in common, so I knew how he felt in some situations. His writing was outstanding except it was a little difficult to know when someone was speaking without quotations, and he uses words that are used in Ireland and Religion words so it might be difficult to understand. I really enjoyed the beginning even though some people started to make me mad. I didn’t enjoy when he starts to get to the part of his life when he is becoming a teenager it starts to get uncomfortable and really personal. It’s really sad though when he gets in his teen years because he isn’t so innocent any more, he knows things now that he knew he been lied to, such as where babies came from. He was told by his father that it was the ‘Angel from the Seventh Step’ who brought the baby but when he gets older he knows the truth.

Frank goes through so much that you wonder, “How can someone survive like this?” Sadly this a true story and has happened to other as well. It’s horrible to know that this is what happens to people and still happens. This book makes you be grateful for what you have even if you’re not happy with your life. Remember that there are worse lives out there that would love to be in your life. Frank McCourt did have a miserable Irish Catholic childhood, but he was a strong man to go back in his childhood and start to remember it all and then write about it. I recommend this book for those who are 15 and over.