I'll be honest: I didn't get to finish listening to this one because I started it, then my library hold on Barack Obama's The Promised Land came up, and I ran out of time (if you don't know, they are both monsters in size! I do love a huge book, but big books = hours in listening time and these two together totaled well over 50!)  I actually didn't know there was a limit to my ability to access this here. But I am reviewing anyway because 1. I was well into the book--over halfway 2. what I heard was so compelling and I know I will finish it and 3. Listening to the author read his work was, as it usually is, a great experience, and in this case, exceptional. His scottish brogue was so wonderful to listen to and brought a verisimilitude to the experience that was invaluable. This is a minimum 4 star read, possibly 5!

Book Review

Brief summary:
Shuggie Bain is an incredibly powerful and challenging debut novel of love, loss, and perseverance that brings light to struggle and inspires a hope for something more. As a fictional account of Stuart’s own childhood in ‘80s Glasgow, it brings an emotional and fearsome reality to life and it will break your heart over and over.

This book felt like a mix between Angela's Ashes meets A Little Life. Yes, those are two pretty sorrowful books and Shuggie is equally as sorrowful. I highly recommend reading with a group, it was so nice to be able to discuss the many feelings that this book makes you feel (mainly anger and sadness) with the #read group. I had to read in shorter bursts to counterbalance the sadness. I threw it down, I shed tears on its pages, and I stared at the cover (when I was listening to the audio). It is truly a remarkable story. Shuggie is one of those characters we hold in our hearts long after setting the book down.


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The 2020 Booker Prize winner, Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart is an emotionally charged debut novel.  My heart broke into a million pieces as the sweet, polite and outcast young Shuggie tried so hard to make his mother better and desperately wanted to fit in.

This story takes place in Scotland during the 1980's.  It is a coming of age story, but it is so much more than that.  It is a story of devotion, a bond between a mother and a son, a story of alcoholism and addiction, a story of family dynamics, abandonment, survival and shattered dreams.  

The writing is not action packed.  The story is character driven with strong details that force you to sit in the intensity of each character's feelings.  The characters are well developed and the reader is immersed into their lives. Especially, Shuggie and his mother Agnes.

This heartbreaking story deals with some heavy topics such as alcoholism, addiction, sexuality, violence, physical, sexual, and verbal abuse.  

This book will move you and Shuggie will find a special place in your heart.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dreamscape media for an audio version of this novel for an honest review.  Angus King's narration with the Scottish accent and emotional delivery only added to the authenticity this story deserves.

Bookworm Rating: 🐛🐛🐛🐛🌱

If you only read one work of literary fiction this year, make it Shuggie Bain. This is a book that will break your heart, and if it doesn’t, then I would argue that you don’t have one. It’s a book of family love, addiction, and heartbreak in which young Shuggie comes of age amidst the unemployment of Thatcher - era Scotland. Singing prose, and gentle humor are mixed with the harsh and brutal disappointment that is Shuggie’s family life. 
Don't miss this one. Highly Recommended! This debut deserves all the awards this year, IMO.

5+ stars. This is one of the best books I've read this year. I don't remember the last book I read that made me feel everything the characters are going through. Stuart's descriptive language is exceptional. You can see, feel, taste, small, and touch every moment in this book. And every sense you experience is deep and impactful. 
While the book is called Shuggie Bain, this is almost the story of Shugguie's mother, Agnes. The story follows Agnes, Shuggie and his siblings through the late 80s in Glasgow. It's a story of heartbreak and struggle. A story of a young boy surviving and trying to help his mother live. It's a story of hope and sadness. I didn't want it to end.
I started this book as an audio book and decided to switch to reading it. While it was helpful to hear the dialogue as the audiobook, the language and descriptions lend themselves much better to reading.

The writing in this book was beautifully done! Shuggie's story is heartbreaking, more so because it so easily happens to families. The descriptions of some of the scenes make !e think the author must have lived through something similar. It's a book that will stay with me for a long time, and I will keep it to read again. It was that good!

Shuggie Bain won the Booker Prize in 2020 and was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction, so yeah, there's some buzz around this book. 

The titular character Shuggie Bain is a boy growing up in decrepit public housing in Glasgow, Scotland during the 80's.   Shuggie's heart fully belongs to his mother Agnes, who maintains her glamorous looks despite her family's financial situation and her cab-driver husband's affairs.   Agnes dreams of owning her own home but as her life continues down its dismal path, she turns to drink and becomes an alcoholic.   She starts spending the family's money on drinks instead of food and other necessities.  Through this all, Shuggie stands by, even when his other siblings have had it with their mother. Shuggie just yearns to be a normal boy living a normal life. 

This book was lovely but heartbreaking.   This stunning debut novel deftly tackles the subjects of addiction and sexuality.   Though I've never been to Glasgow, I felt like I was transported there through this book and could see the people in Shuggie's house and neighborhood.  

The audio book was very well down and I loved the narrator's accent.  It really helped to bring the story alive.  I highly recommend this one in audio format.

“She was no use at maths homework, and some days you could starve rather than get a hot meal from her, but Shuggie looked at her now and understood this was where she excelled. Everyday with the make-up on and her hair done, she climbed out of her grave and held her head high. When she had disgraced herself with drink, she got up the next day, put on her best coat, and faced the world. When her belly was empty and her weans were hungry, she did her hair and let the world think otherwise.”


It is difficult to categorize the novel Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart -- it is a story that revolves around addiction, coming of age, and family in 1980’s Glasgow Scotland. Shuggie is a young boy that has to navigate the lack of a father figure, a mother that is deeply addicted to alcohol, and come to terms with his own individuality in a community that is quite traditional. A heartfelt dive into a world of poverty, Shuggie Bain will make every reader feel something.

Stuart’s prose is beautiful and violently emotional. I was so blown away that this was a debut novel. We follow Shuggie from the ages of six to seventeen, through his joys and tragedies, but I felt like this novel was really truely about his mother, Agnes. Agnes’s relationships, reaching out to others to cure her loneliness, and detrimental alcoholism are the real focus of the novel, even if they are through the eyes of Shuggie. Graphic and gritty, Stuart’s novel will break your heart, but leave you hopeful for the future, for Shuggie’s future. 

The audiobook narration was quite well done. Angus King’s voice and annunciation were perfection.

Thank you to NetGalley and Grove Press for the opportunity to listen and review this audiobook.

Shuggie is a Scottish boy, named after his father, Big Shug.  He lives with his grandparents, mother, father, sister and brother in a tenement flat.  His father is a taxi driver; his mother stays at home.  Shug is her second husband and Shuggie's brother and sister are from her first marriage.  Shug hates living with his in-laws and he convinces Agnes, the mother, to move to a new flat a few miles away.  The surprise is that when the family gets there, Big Shug doesn't move in.  He has found a new woman and leaves the family there with no transportation.
The other big fact about Shuggie's life is that Agnes drinks.  Not a little bit but a lot.  She regularly gets so drunk that she passes out.  She spends the welfare money on drink, leaving the children with no food in the house.  She alternates between treating them as small children and over loving them or ignoring them or cursing them when the drink is on her.  This is the normal for Shuggie as he has never known anything else.  He believes that it is his job to make Agnes better no matter what price that extracts from him. 

Shuggie is a kind boy, a boy who thinks of others.  The kids at school call him posh and accuse him of being gay and maybe he is; he's not sure about any of that.  As the years go by, first his sister and then his brother leave to try to make their own lives.  Shuggie is the one who stays by Agnes as she is taken advantage of by men, as she drinks up everything they own.  He feeds her when there is food in the house, he draws her baths, he undresses her and puts her to bed.  But he never loses hope and he never loses the kindness in his heart.

This book won the 2020 Booker award.  I listened to it and the narrator's Scottish brogue added to my enjoyment of the novel.  This is a novel that will stick in the reader's mind and Shuggie and his determination to rise above his circumstances will endear him to readers and make him memorable. Although the story is bleak, no one will regret meeting Shuggie.   This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.

I went into this having a faint idea of what it was about, but I'm so, so glad I read it. I'm especially glad that I listened to the audiobook version, because this is one of the best audiobooks I've ever listened to. Since the novel is set in Scotland, I think the story really came to life with narration by a Scottish man. Every word was spoken with emotion, the characters all had unique inflections, and it was just a really great experience. I was thankful for the Scottish accent narrating the book, who surely pronounced everything with 100% more ease than I could ever have. The story itself is as heartbreaking as everyone says. I couldn't recommend it more; It's now earned a spot in my top 5 favorite books. 

(thank you Net Galley for the ARC!!!!!!)

Excellent book and excellent narrator. Such a beautiful story to listen to and the narrator made it feel exceptionally personal and real.

I had read several very positive reviews written about Snuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart and was so looking forward to reading this book. When the opportunity came to listen to the audiobook I was overjoyed. Right from the start I was lured into Shuggie’s story. It opened my eyes to how the powerful combination of addiction and poverty could change the dynamics of family life. Snuggie Baines focused on the brutal and devastating consequences of extreme poverty, alcoholism, role reversals, and abuse. It took place in the 1980’s in Glasgow. The Thatcher government had instilled devastating policies and as they were enacted it became apparent how they negatively affected the people of Glasgow tremendously. The very poor were living in welfare housing during that time. They viewed their lives with despair and often became depressed. It was not uncommon for many of those poor citizens to come to rely on alcohol as a means of escape. This was what happened to Shuggie’s mother, Agnes. Her three children learned to live with an alcoholic mother in a world none of them liked or had asked for. Shuggie Bain was a character driven book that touched upon every one of my emotions.

The brilliant writing from Douglas Stuart captured and depicted the essence of what Shuggie’s life was like. Shuggie was the youngest child of an alcoholic mother, Agnes. She was often found to be in a compromised state that caused her to neglect her three children and other responsibilities as a mother. The combination and reality of those things pushed Shuggie to grow up faster than necessary or expected. Shuggie was not like the other boys his age. He did not fit the mold of what a boy his age was expected to be like by the overall society of that time. It was obvious that Shuggie was gay even though it was not directly stated. That made it hard for Shuggie to make friends and he was often picked on, bullied and even abused. Even some adults were unkind to Shuggie and also abused him. Despite everything, though, there was a loyal, loving and caring bond between Shuggie and his mother. Shuggie always found ways to be resilient and never lost hope for better days and times. Agnes’s and Shuggie’s relationship was intense and not in the normal realm of a typical mother-son relationship. Shuggie became the care giver. He went to great lengths to keep his mother safe and alive. 

I was touched emotionally and so moved by this book. It was hard to believe that this was Douglas Stuart’s debut book. Shuggie Bain was a beautiful and tragic book and one of the better books I have read. Shuggie’s story will stay with me for a long time. It has been short listed for the 2020 Booker Prize.Finalist Book Awards.

Thank you to the publisher for allowing me to listen to the audiobook of Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I liked this- it was beautifully written and kept my attention for the most part. Definitely excited to see what the author does next!

What a remarkable, heart-wrenching and honest story of a Scottish family and the difficult lives they lead in poverty. The main character, Shuggie, is the youngest son to a dysfunctional family. We meet him as a precocious and young child who grows into a teen throughout the story. He has a raging alcoholic as a mother, who never felt that she was living the life she deserved. His father was a philanderer who changed families as fast as things got rough in his current situation. Shug, the dad, was always dallying on the side and then ready to move on when life wore him down. The older siblings each gradually moved away for their own security and to live their lives leaving poor Shuggie to care for himself and his mother and her self destructive ways. Shuggie has a rough life for multiple reasons given his challenging family situation as well as neglect due to those circumstances. He becomes the subject of bullying, abuse, neglect and truancy. He is a complex character whose own gender identity appears to be a part of his story without it being his only story. 
This book was brilliantly written and narrated by Angus King, who brought the dialect from the written pages to life. I highly recommend the audiobook. I had the physical book prior to getting a copy of the audiobook from NetGalley and it adds so much to the reading experience. The language is beautiful and the story is compelling. 
In reading the author’s notes at the end, I was even more impressed at the author for using his own experience as the backdrop for the novel. Douglas Stuart created a wonderful reading experience. 
I highly recommend this for anyone who likes a dark family drama.
#ShuggieBainDreamscapeMedia #NetGalley #DreamscapeMedia

A book that is equally desperate and devastating.  The myriad struggles of Shuggie and Agnes are heart-wrenching but vital to tell the story of our modern lives and how we got here.  Despite the sadness prevalent throughout, it is never heartbreaking.

An achievement and a top notch audiobook.  Narration could not have been bett.er

Set in Scotland, this novel had the feel of a much, much darker variation of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn in all the right ways. A child growing up in a struggling and deeply troubled family, this book is full of heartbreak. 

The Shuggie Bain audiobook was narrated with a gloriously accented voice that suited this story perfectly. The narrator was very engaging and brought each character and the winding plot to life. 

It is no wonder this engaging work of fiction is short listed for book awards. It was brimming with disturbing content but somehow, was wonderful. 

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#ShuggieBain
#NetGalley
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#AngusKing
#DreamscapeMedia
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Shuggie Bain is the touching story of a young boy whose mother is an alcoholic and how he struggles to love her while hating her for her drinking.  Often we don't know why people turn to alcohol but in this book the author is adept in showing how the changes in government policies have created a shift in jobs for the working class.

The narrator is what makes this audiobook so powerful.

This book brought tears to my eyes.  I cried for Shuggie and I cried for Agnes.  Trapped in the dysfunction of her alcoholism she allows herself to be taken advantage of and abused by men.  Her children - for as much as they love her  - seek escape from the neglect, the embarrassment, and the disorder of their lives.  As the older children flee young Shuggie is left behind to fend for himself and take care of their mother.   He has this enduring hope that he can save her from herself but every time she relapses he feels at fault.  

Although he finds a friend in Leeann, Shuggie does not fit in with the normal crowd.  He talks posh and carries himself differently than the other boys.  As he comes to terms with his sexuality he is bullied and battered.   

There were times that I had to put this one aside.  Sad for sure and authentic to Glasgow during the Thatcher era, Stuart's characters call out to you.  Excellent debut!  Wishing Shuggie Bain and Douglas Stuart the best of luck in its bid for the Man Booker and National Book Awards.

It's absolutely heart wrenching. The story of Shuggie Bain also largely follows his mother, Agnes Bain, who is the tragic, wonderful, messy, self-destructive alcoholic mother of Shuggie. The family was headed by her and Big Shug, a philandering taxi cab driver that leaves when he can't handle his life anymore. Their oldest kids find ways to escape Agnes and her drink, leaving Shuggie to take care of his mother. It's really heartbreaking all the small ways Shuggie learns how to take care of his mother given his young age. There is a scene when they're together in a room and a fire starts, which worries Shuggie, but Agnes holds on tight, enjoying herself. At this time, you realize just how much Shuggie's life is teetering on the ability of his mother to hold things together.  Often times we see that she's trying to act sober and puts on a good show by wearing immaculate make-up and sharp clothes to give the appearance of having things in order, in large part thanks to Shuggie's efforts. She's supportive of him and clearly loves him,  but he's as lonely as her. He finds himself struggling to be like normal boys, but he must come to terms with bullies over his sexuality. It's wonderful and the audiobook's narrator does a fantastic job of bringing all the characters and drama to life! Great casting!

Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart is one of the most complex books I’ve listened to. I listened to this one on audiobook and the narrator is wonderful, but it is really hard to keep track of what is going on if you are not really concentrating. I found myself having to go back and listen to parts to figure out what I missed. The story is not easy to listen to in parts- there is nothing “fluffy”. It’s gritty and at times disturbing. It’s definitely an honest look into this complex family. I think it deserves all the accolades and praise is is getting. 

Thank you to NetGalley and Grove Press for the opportunity to listen to this audiobook.