Angela’s Ashes Book Review
     The memoir, Angela’s Ashes, is an incredible account of Frank McCourt’s childhood.  Plagued with loss, poverty, and family conflicts, Frank McCourt must navigate through these obstacles to chase his dream of going to America.  McCourt’s dry sense of humor and vivid descriptions tell of the awful experiences his family went through from an innocent child’s point of view.
     Angela’s Ashes first takes the reader to New York City where Frank was conceived in a rather comical and unusual fashion.  It describes how Frank’s family could not make ends meet in New York, so they headed for Ireland, where their parents, Malachy and Angela, had relatives to help them.  McCourt recalls the struggles he faced in Ireland from the time that he is a small child, to his teenage years where he yearns to return to America.  Overall, the book illustrates the experiences that transformed Frank McCourt from a boy to a young man.
McCourt’s memoir, despite being a chronicle of often horrific experiences, depicts a theme of hope throughout the entire novel.   This idea is further enhanced by the thoughts and dry humor that carries Frank through his childhood.  An example of this humor, is on Frank’s communion day when he throws up his breakfast and communion in his grandmother’s backyard.  His grandmother, terrified, says, “Look at what he did.  Thrun up his First Communion breakfast.  Thrun up the body and blood of Jesus.  I have God in me backyard.  What am I goin’ to do?  I’ll take him to the Jesuits for they know the sins of the Pope himself”.  This scene, and others in the book encapsulates McCourt’s rather light-hearted outlook on a childhood that was stricken with poverty and conflict.
     To conclude, Angela’s Ashes is an excellent novel despite its melancholy and seemingly hopeless parts.  McCourt had a gift in that he could take a terrible childhood memory and still find some dry humor in it.  Given the book’s harsh and sometimes sexual topics, it is best for a mature audience and one that can enjoy a book that is a heavy read.  Even with the sad nature of this memoir, it has a surprising balance of humor in it, and for that reason, I would give it four and half stars.