It took me a long time to read this book, because it was so heart-wrenchingly sad. The gorgeous writing made Shuggie's life so clearly described, that I wished I could find a way to help this little boy through the difficulties that he had to endure.
What makes this even more heart breaking is that you know how so many little ones have to go, or are going through their childhoods just as Shuggie is doing. With the opiate crisis our country is facing as well as parents' addictions to alcohol and other drugs, there are so many children living in the same way.
I highly recommend reading this one.

Agnes Bain may be the most memorable drunk in literature. Living in Glasgow Scotland during the 1980’s, she leaves her first husband who seems to be a solid, respectable person with whom she had two children. She leaves him for a philandering taxi driver whose activities aren’t that much different than hers. With Shug Bain she has a third child, Shuggie. Shug moves the family from his mother-in-law’s apartment to god-forsaken council housing in an area where Maggie Thatcher has been closing the coal mines. Shug leaves Agnes and the three kids there and returns to Glasgow where he shacks up with his mistress. You really can’t blame him, Agnes is soused most of the time. The two older kids are nearly adult and manage to make their way forward, but poor little Shuggie, is stuck with his mom, the mean kids in the council housing who instantly pick up on his feminine ways and pick on him continually. Worth reading, this is one of the saddest books I’ve read in a long time. Glasgow has lost its appeal after reading about their slums. This is not a book that makes you want to visit. If you want a cheerful middle-class book about Scotland read something by Alexander McCall Smith, although it seems like the residents around 44 Scotland Street in Edinburgh aren’t that impressed by Glasgow either.

4.5 I knew it! When I was only fifty pages or so into the book, I had the feeling it was going to break my heart. It did. Glasgow in the eighties, many live in council housing, a day to day existence. These people are so messed up, poor and struggling, trying to find money, love, desperate beyond belief. Agnes turns to drink, anything to escape the mess she has made of her life. Her three children, try their best, but it is never enough. One leaves home as soon as she can, leaving her mother and two brothers far behind.

It is Shuggie though who breaks my heart and to s certain extent his older brother Leek. They both have responsibilities they should not have at their age. Shuggie though has an additional struggle, as he doesn't fit in anywhere. His sexual orientation makes him stand out, he walks different, doesn't like sports. Ultimately he is picked on and bullied. He also feels if his mother just realized how much he love her, she would stop drinking.

This story feels do very real. Children that grow up in households where ones parent is an alcoholic, will recognize the authenticity of the way the children act. How they often blame themselves, take on responsibilities way too early. Believe me I know. I think that is why this book hit me so hard.

A terrific book, full of emotion and the struggles of a parent who can't face reality. A parent who struggles with a fearsome addiction. Yet, reading this one can't help but feel for her too.

ARC from Netgalley.

This is a very sad and stark story, but uplifting in the love Shuggie has for his mother. I loved the descriptive writing as well as the dialect.

I think my heart grew three sizes reading this.

Shuggie Bain is a young boy growing up in 80s Glasgow, with an alcoholic mother, absent father, and a dawning sense that he just doesn’t fit the same mould as all the other kids. It is a stark, evocative novel that presents both its setting and its characters with deep empathy.

We follow Shuggie from ages six to seventeen, but it is not much of a childhood as he spends most of it looking after his mother. Really, this novel is her tragic story and could just as easily have been titled Agnes Bain. She is both cause and effect of the wreckage of Shuggie’s life, coloured as it is by poverty and violence. She fails him and is failed by others. Meanwhile Shuggie struggles with the standards of masculinity required of him by his peers, and the hopelessness pervading a community put out of work and with nowhere to go. Your heart breaks for Shuggie, Agnes, and everyone else in this forlorn place.

It’s hard to explain why a 450-page novel that is so bleak and devastating is worth your time. Not everyone likes sad stories, and even those who do need to be in right mood for something like this. Shuggie Bain is immersive, authentic, extremely moving, and a remarkable debut. 4.5 stars.

This was heartbreaking. A very good book though, I was stuck on each and every word and found it hard to put down a few times. It follows the point of view of the baby of this family, his name is Shuggie. There are 3 children, the 2 older ones are from one man, the man the mother leaves for another, and this other man is Shuggie's father. He isn't a good man, he brings the family to live in the ghetto before he ultimately leaves; all the while the mother is falling deeper and deeper into alcoholism. Despite Shug being the baby, he usually ends up in the parenting role, doing everything he can to take care of his mother while she drinks herself stupid.

Thanks netgalley for giving me the advanced PDF so that I can share my opinions with y'all

This book is billed as a coming-of-age story but be warned...

Shuggie Bain is NOT a John Green book.

This is a graphic, gritty, unflinching coming-of-age story about the life of a precious child struggling for air under an avalanche of tribulations and his alcoholic mother of whom his love knows no bounds.

It takes a few chapters to settle into Shuggie's world but I implore you to stick it out.

Douglas Stuart's writing is exemplary in creating an immersive experience unlike any I've experienced in a long time. Bravo, sir.


** I recieved an ARC from Grove Atlantic in exchange for an honest review. **

I found the beginning of this book to be a bit difficult, because it's written in a strong (scottish? Irish?) dialect.

This book was written about the Thatcher era, which was similar to the Great Depression, in the United Kingdom. (Google it, it was a very sad era). People are poor and struggling, and as a result they turn to drink, drugs, gambling, prostitution etc.

In this book we follow the story of Shuggie Bain the son of Agnes Bain. After a rocky marriage, Agnes turns to drink and becomes an alcoholic. Her two older children manage to leabe the nest to fend for themselves, but Shuggie is left behind in the aftermath to take care of his ailing mother.

This book is very dark and depressing. There are few character you will like, but there are a lot you will feel sorry for. There is no happy ended and there are a lot of triggering events. Please do not read this unless you are in the right frame of mind.

Shuggie makes his way into your heart and he is a character you most likely won't ever forget.

Content Warning: rape, prostitution, child abuse, alcohol, drugs, sexual abuse, sexuality abuse, homophobia

*thanks to Netgalley for this arc in exchange for an honest review*

Set in the 80s in Glasgow, Shuggie Bain is a depressingly sad story of a little boy Hugh 'Shuggie' living in a social housing with his gorgeous but alcoholic mother Agnes. Shuggie is different from other boys and doesn't like the usual 'boy stuff' and so he's constantly bullied and picked on. He loves his mummy dearly and wants to protect her from men who use her and don't care about her. Agnes takes pride in her appearance but that's not enough to keep her husband Shug to stay with her. Her drinking problem is out of control and all her benefits money is spent on alcohol.

Shuggie Bain is a story of addiction, poverty and abuse. It is an honest and gloomy account of life in Scotland when unemployment rocketed due to Thatcher's reforms and thousands of men found themselves out of work unable to provide for their families. This is a hard book to read and It took me a while to finish it, not because it's not a great story, but due to the heaviness and bleakness which can be draining. Yet, it is very readable and compelling and I'm sure we'll be hearing about this book and the author quite a bit.

Many thanks to the publisher for my review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Agnes had so many hopes for her life. Her first husband was simply a disappointment, too well-behaved, too boring. With Shug Bain things could be different. But soon she wakes up still in her childhood room with her parents, aged 39 and mother of three kids. Shug promises a better life and rents them a home in a run-down public housing area on the outskirts of Glasgow. Yet, Shug does not really move in with his family, he is driving his taxi more and more often and spends his free time with other women. Soon enough, Agnes finds comfort in alcohol, her new neighbourhood is the perfect place to drown your thoughts and worries in cans of beer. Shuggie’s older brother Leek and his sister Catherine can distance themselves from their always intoxicated mother, yet, Shuggie is too young and for years, he hopes that one days, Agnes will be sober and they will have a life like any normal family.

Douglas Stuart’s novel is really heart-wrenching. You follow Shuggie’s childhood in the 1980s, a time when life was hard for many working class families who often did not know how to make ends meet which drove many fathers and mothers to alcohol. Shuggie’s love for his mother is unconditional, he is too young to understand the mechanisms behind her addiction and to see what it does not only to her but also to him. It would be too easy to blame Agnes for the misery she brings to herself and her son, she too is a victim of the time she lives in and the society that surrounds her. Industrial times are over in Scotland and the formerly working class turn into a new underclass.

It is not the plot that stands out in this novel, actually, all that happens is a downward spiral of alcoholism and decay that leads to the necessary end one would expect. Much more interesting are the two main characters, mother and son, and their development throughout the novel. Agnes tries to preserve her pride, to be the glamorous and beautiful woman she has once been and who has always attracted men even when times get tough. She keeps her chin up as long as she can – at least when she happens to be sober.

Already at a young age Shuggie has to learn that life will not offer him much. His family’s poverty and his mother’s addiction would be enough challenge in life. However, the older he gets, the more unsure he becomes about who he actually is. As a young boy, he prefers playing with girls’ toys and later he does not really develop an interest in girls either which makes him an easy target of bullying. No matter how deep his mother sinks, he always hopes for better days, days with his father, days without hunger. He is good at observing and even better at doing what is expected of him. He learns quickly how to behave around the different men in their home, how to hide his life from the outside world. In Leanne, he finally finds somebody who can understand him because she herself leads exactly the same life. They only long to be normal, yet, a normal life is not something that their childhood has been destined to.

Quite often you forget how young Shuggie is, his life is miserable but he has perfectly adapted to the circumstances. Douglas Stuart provides insight in a highly dysfunctional family where you can nevertheless find love and affection. It is clear that there is no escape from this life which makes it totally depressing. Somehow, the novel reminds me of the “Kitchen Sink” dramas with the only difference of being set in the 1980s and shown from a female perspective. Agnes is not the angry young woman; she is the desperate middle-aged mother whose dreams are over and who provides only one example to her son: do not expect anything from life or anybody.

An emotionally challenging novel due to its unforgiving realism.

Thank you, Grove Atlantic Press for gifting me a DARC of Shuggie Bain
by Douglas Stuart, in exchange for an honest review. If I could describe this book in 3 words I would say, devastating, maddening and remarkable. I had to read this book in parts because I found myself extremely sensitive towards Shuggie’s struggles. Stuart is an excellent storyteller and I would read more of his future works.

Excellent debut novel and beautifully written.
This is however a very dark read about alcoholism, drug abuse, graphic rape, abuse and raw poverty in Thatcher-era Glasgow with descriptive scenes of poverty and desolation.
Agnes, Shuggie’s mother, whose once positive dreams are constantly shattered by her selfish abusive philandering second husband Shug, Shuggie’s father. Her downward spiral into alcoholism makes her continually fail her children and yet, this young boy clearly loves his mother.
A heart wrenching story and a tough but a must read.

What a book! This is not one I will soon forget. It really is hard to believe this is a debut novel. It is beautifully written and so descriptive that I could picture everything clearly in my mind. It is a heartbreaking story of a family that is dysfunctional in so many ways. The children have an alcoholic mother and an absentee father and most of the money that comes into the house goes for alcohol instead of food and other necessities. The main character is the youngest son of three children and loves his mother dearly and does everything he can to help and protect her. His two older siblings eventually move away and leave Shuggie alone to cope with his mother. He is a teenager at the time and is dealing with being bullied and his own sexuality. This really is a hard story to read but one that is truly worth the effort. I highly recommend this book. It is definitely five stars for me.

First of all - I would like to thank NetGalley, Author DOUGLAS Stuart, and the Publisher of Grove Atlantic for my advanced copy to read, in exchange for my honest review

This in my opinion will be a book that will be noticed. It is really hard to believe that this is the author’s debut novel. It is one that took a great many years to write. It compels you to keep reading and feels, although it is fiction that it is mostly a true story

A heartbreaking sad, story full of deprive, taking place in the 80’s and the 90’s in the working class tennaments of Glasgow

A hard book to read, yet one that compels you to to read as well

A very powerful book

A strong 4.5 Stars, and a book I would highly recommend

This is a very heart wrenching story of a young boy named Shuggie who was growing up in public housing in Glasgow.. third child of an alcoholic woman. The woman has three children .. the first two from one good man, who she leaves .. with both children for another man and then had Shuggie with him. The father of Shuggie was not a good man and he moved them all to public housing and then left them...and the woman became increasingly invested in alcohol.
Shuggie throughout this story tries wholeheartedly to help his mother..
This story shows us all the torment and anguish that the alcoholic and their loved ones endure.
This was a slow read for me.. but I’m glad that I read it. It is so very sad though.

Thank you to Netgalley and Grove Atlantic for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I received this book in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley.

Oh man, this is a heavy one. I need a book palette cleanser after this.

The story of Shuggie Bain is set in Scotland in the 80's or 90's. After reading another Goodreads review, I was inspired to Google images of "Thatcher era Scotland", and I have to say the author did a fabulous job recreating this world in his book. The images I saw were exactly the same as the ones I had conjured in my head as I read along.

As you might guess, reading a book about the son of an absent father and an alcoholic mother in a country in the midst of extreme poverty was not exactly a walk in the park. At points, I cried over the plight of poor Shuggie. The book is raw and real and doesn't romanticize anything about the situation.

Despite being beautiful and haunting, the book is pretty slow, especially in the beginning. It took me a while to get into, probably because many of the characters are unlikable. The very beginning is a bit disorienting, as we are plopped in the middle of Shuggie's grandmother's flat. It took me a while to make sense of the characters. The Scottish slang doesn't help., but I was able to get past that, so don't let it be a deterrent.

Overall, the only reason I struggle to recommend this book is that it is so depressing. The writing is beautiful, and it deserves to be read.

This is a very dark, depressing, gritty read. It also might be a challenging one for those unfamiliar with the Glasgow dialect-- not unlike the Edinburgh dialect in Welsh's Trainspotting.

It shares other similarities with Welsh's novel. Shuggie Bain is a story of substance addiction and abuse. Think of a possible content warning and it is probably in this book. Graphic rape. Physical and emotional abuse. And beyond these overt horrors, the narrative itself is just so... bleak. It seems fitting that the cover is in black and white because Stuart makes this world feel so grim and grey with his descriptions. Even the most basic of actions feel ugly.

Hugh "Shuggie" Bain is a young boy just trying to get by in Thatcher-era Scotland. This novel - though the author's note makes you wonder how much of it is truly fiction - is about Shuggie's complex feelings towards his mother, Agnes, who is both his hero and a woman who is falling apart. She has been abandoned by Shuggie's father, alone with her kids and her alcoholism, trying to find small pieces of happiness in a life that feels so out of her control.

What makes this novel so sad is that you really can feel what it is to love so deeply a person who is failing you so terribly. Shuggie - and Douglas Stuart, I think - loves Agnes. He could be just another story about a neglected kid with an alcoholic parent, but this is nothing so one-dimensional as that. Even at her worst, it is impossible not to feel sympathy for Agnes. To feel her wanting to try, even as she fails.

There are demons big and small in this book. The kind that are selfish people who behave unkindly, the kind that are addictions which enslave a person, and the kind that made the Thatcher era such a misery for the Northern working class. I understand this culture too well. I grew up in Yorkshire, and the effect of this time was so great, the horrors so deeply-engraved that many people from working class areas still whisper the name "Thatcher" like a curse.

I would not recommend reading this unless you are in a good mental place. It is a horrible, dreary read, there's no doubt, but if you see past the layers of ugliness and allow this to rip your heart out, I also think there's a lot of love to be found in here.

Set in 1980s Glasgow with authentic Gaelic dialogue. Story centers upon young Shuggie Bain, son of an alcoholic mother and abusive, philandering father. They are a working class family, and there is much violence throughout the book. He is discovering his sexuality in a macho, homophobic world. Their extended family and acquaintances are intolerant of each other. This book is around 500 pages and could have been half as long, serving the story much better than it does at its extended length.

This book took me an extremely long time to get into. It was very gritty and the author took a lot of time to get this time period right. This is a hard book to read but the pay off is good.. You will need lots of breaks as you read this.

I visited Glasgow last year and saw a city that while a bit gritty was getting on with things. People were out and about and there was a general good vibe about the place. Not so for young Shuggie Bain growing up in the 1980s with massive unemployment, hopelessness, poverty, alcoholism and the scourge of power - domestic violence. And poor Shuggie suffers further due to his effeminate manners, speech and interests. He adores his mother but her addition to the drink destroys her and those she knows. Her rants and violence against those who have offended her are extraordinary. But she retains her looks and is a victim of men looking for sex. Then there is Huggie's father who can't keep his pants on and disappears from their lives.
The book pounds the reader with tales of violence, drunkenness, child exploitation and paedophilia. In this world the meek do not inherit anything except bashings. It's not a pretty read but it does tell a tale of what life was like (and still is for some) who suffer from addiction, isolation and abandonment.
There is love in the story, especially between Huggie and his mother, and there is always hope.