Whew. After finishing this one I need a nap, a mug of something warm, and possibly some over the counter medication. This book was fantastic and gripping but also brutal, savage, and almost emotionally abusive. This title should come with a disclaimer,

“Do not drive or operate heavy machinery twelve hours after completing this book. Some readers may be unable to exist normally in polite society up to several hours after reading the ending. Consult your healthcare provider if symptoms persist longer than 24 hours.”

Some fiction is so affecting and moving it should really be available by prescription only and this is definitely one of those books. I’d recommend it to almost anyone, it’s perhaps the best book I’ve read all year and I can tell already it will stick with me for ages. When you read it you’re fully immersed, you can smell the streets of Glasgow and you feel as if Mungo and his odd, rough family, are real people you’ve known all your life. In its best moments this novel rises to the peaks of what good fiction is capable of and finds a way to push higher still. It’s honest and beautiful, and tragic and everything that makes storytelling one of the oldest human passions. But it’s also emotionally taxing in the extreme, not a bad thing at all but something I’d definitely mention to anyone I push this on, like a warning label.

Douglas Stuart is fast becoming one of the most lauded writers of the decade and it’s abundantly apparent why. The man is a savant with his characterization and his prose drips emotion and pathos. He can paint a scene with words like few others can and manages to pull off fantastic stories that feel as massive and weighty as epics and as ordinary as everyday life at the same time.
Superb book, beautiful from beginning to end.