Book of the year so far! I think I need to read it again... I spent so much of it reading through tears I may have missed bits. The characters were so well drawn (not just the mains but supporting characters too) and I physically ached for Banjo and Finlay at times. An arresting, powerful and uplifting debut that I am already telling everyone I know about!

A deeply emotional story!

Glasgow Boys plunges into the sad and lonely reality of kids growing up in the care system and the trauma such an upbringing can leave them with.

Finlay and Banjo used to be best friends, each other's anchor, until a fight due to miscommunication and hidden fears caused them to fall out for good and never see each other again.

Neither of them has fully moved on: Finlay stopped letting people in to avoid getting hurt when they eventually leave him and Banjo believes he deserves nothing good in his life, picking up fights and driving people away with hostility.

Both boys are finally close to finding their footing in life, and their past falling out is the mental obstacle between them and happiness. They will need to face their trauma head-on to avoid losing new friends, a boyfriend and a girlfriend, a new found family...

The book is bittersweet and quite heavy at several moments - the road to recovery is steep and slippery. It's also optimistic because you can see the changes happen slowly and steadily in the boys' minds.

If I have one criticism, is that the climax and turning point takes place too late - I would like more space in the end showing their "post-meeting" lives.

An excellent debut overall by Margaret McDonald!

Thank you NetGalley and Faber & Faber for the ARC!

i'm always on the lookout for more books set in glasgow and i loved this one as it went into specifics in the west end/further out. i liked the two perspectives and their bond, as well as their seperate lives.

A harrowing story about two boys brought up in the care system in Scotland who are trying to find their place in the world.
I found this book dark and disturbing and I just wasn’t for me.
Thank you to NetGalley and Faber and Faber Ltd for my e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was a really beautiful read and I'm very grateful to have done so. Well written, wonderful characters and superbly paced. Look forward to seeing more.

The only thing I can articulate about this book was that it was incredible, moving, and everything I needed.

The characters, the story, the setting—it was all so beautiful and the emotions it put me through were so impactful and I really felt what the characters were going through alongside them.

Finlay and Banjo’s friendship is difficult, and reading their struggle to find each-other again was so heartbreaking yet lovely at the same time—the fact that pure love such as theirs can exist is just so beautiful to me, and I think it really shows how deeply love in a friendship can resonate.

This book deals with some difficult themes, but I think they were very well done and insightful. I really loved the character development and healing that the two main characters express and go through.

This was a lovely story, filled with so many heartfelt moments of family, friendship, love; everything. It’s tender and tough but really worth the read.

This is a new favourite of mine, I just adored it so much.

This is a heart warming tale of friendship and love, and the challenges faced by two young boys growing up in care. I really enjoyed this novel as I thought the characterisation was strong and the story full of tenderness.

What a beautiful book! I have to admit, I am a sucker for books set in the city where I work and have previously lived but, even if it hadn't been set in Glasgow, I would still have loved it.

The titular Glasgow Boys are Finlay and Banjo with the story told in alternating chapters from their perspectives. Both have a history of being in care, or 'looked after', with Banjo now living with foster parents and Finlay starting a nursing degree at the University of Glasgow (where I am currently a mature student).

Although it becomes apparent that Finlay and Banjo are known to each other, it is not clear how or why until we are drip fed some back story. What we do know, in the present day, is that both of them are struggling to comes to terms with growing up and are still caught up in their difficult pasta.

I absolutely fell in love with both characters and I am sure you will do the same. I won't give away too much more but there are plenty of tears of sadness and joy, smiles and tantrums and everything in-between.

A truly brilliant novel which will be enjoyed by all.

Thanks to Netgalley, and Faber and Faber for an ARC in exchange for an honest review

Finally and Banjo are two rootless kids in care in Glasgow and from a close emotional bond. Three years later, Banjo is with foster parents and begins to fall in love. Finlay is left care and is in training at medical school. He too, falls in love. As their world collides, the open wounds of the past open up.

This is certainly a well-written book, with a metronomic structure, but also flashback/flashforward. However, that can be a little confining and the novel does tend to drag its feet where it could dance. And the novel’s big reveal, where the two characters finally meet takes place far too late in the novel, leading to a denouement that feels both neat and Panglossian.

Nevertheless, it reflects the boho and the gadgie. Plus, it’s nice to see something that is purely of the modern day city, rather than the relflection of what Welsh was doing thirty years ago. It’s published by Faber and Faber on May 2nd and I thank them for a review copy.

Oooft, this was a hard read in terms of putting your emotions through the wringer. A story of friendship, love and trauma and a painful insight into the care system, Glasgow Boys is up there with Shuggie Bain in its ability to make the reader sob uncontrollably.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in return for an honest review of the book.

Outstanding. Truly truly outstanding. What a beautiful work of art this book was. I'm struggling to put my feelings into words, but it felt tender and fragile and bold all at the same time and was just absolutely heart wrenching.
Margaret McDonald spent these 350 pages carefully carving out a place in my heart for these brilliant characters, this book will truly stay with me. It's barely February but I'm calling it right now, this will be in my top three books this year, I just know it.
Absolutely beautiful.

I was kindly given an ARC of this book, which I am incredibly grateful for. All opinions are my own.

Glasgow Boys is an emotional book about trauma, love and healing. We follow two boys, both of whom have had deeply troubled lives and have been through the foster care system. They had once been roommates in a group home, formed a deep connection with each other, then something happened and they haven't seen each other in years.

Banjo is an angry teenager, looking for fights everywhere he goes. His emotions spill over frequently, and he has a hard time connecting to the world because of it. Still in foster care, Banjo secures a job at a cafe where he starts to form relationships with the workers, especially Alena, a cute girl who deals with Crohn's Disease.

Meanwhile, Finlay has aged out of care and is trying to make it on his own as a nursing student. Rather than project his trauma outwardly, Finlay thinks himself unlovable by the world so he ghosts and retreats as much as he can. He reconnects with an old childhood friend, but struggles with the idea that someone could want to be around him.

This book had me sobbing multiple times; I believe it's a story about love more than anything else. Interwoven between the different POV's, we get snippets of what happened three years ago in the group home. Every single word of this novel had me gripped and I felt emotionally attached to not only the two main boys, but also to the multiple side characters.

If I could rate this higher than a 5/5, I easily would.

Oh wow, what an incredibly moving book. I didn’t expect this story to capture me the way it did, from the first chapter I was hooked and had no choice but to finish this book in one sitting. I adored Banjo and Finlay, they both felt so real and raw. From the get go I was emotionally invested and craving answers about these boys. They were emotional and traumatised and beautiful characters that represent so many young people that are misunderstood and often overlooked. This book was brimming with love and hope, but equally heartbreak and despair. I’ll be thinking about this one for a while, what a poignant display of human emotion.

‘My family is who I allow it to be.’

Glasgow Boys. The title and blurb immediately reminded me of gritty stories set in Glasgow like Shuggie Bain and Young Mungo, or even Boys Don’t Cry, set in Dublin (please pick up this one if you haven’t yet), but while reading I found beauty and hopefulness instead of darkness.

I have to admit, I had to get used to the writing. Third person, present tense is never my favorite, and combined with the short, blunt sentences and chapters, it felt distant to me. But the writing grew on me.

Meet Finlay, the bony, blonde, socially awkward, closeted student. Meet Banjo, the short, ginger, hot-headed, athletic boy. Both craving for love.

Two boys so different, but once close as brothers when they lived in the same group care home. Until they had a fall out. Neither of them having had a hug for ages. Both surviving on their own. Neither of them needing anyone else.

Sometimes, my mom’s heart hurt tremendously, and I all wanted to do is hug those two boys. I had lumps in my throat when they thought about the one at the other side of the bathroom door, or when they touched the wooden dresser and knew another person was touching it too. I had tears in my eyes when Banjo got beaten up or Finlay felt so alone. I bawled my eyes out when Banjo gave Mr Black to Finlay. And when I read what had happened between them I sobbed. Uncontrollably. But …

I didn’t only have tears from anger of sadness. I blinked wildly when Finlay talked about his sexuality and when Alena’s mom called Banjo a sweetheart. And for most of the book, a smile danced on my face. Because of Finlay’s immediate crush on Akash, because of Banjo’s joy in working in a greasy kitchen, because of the people who accepted them for who they were, and because of the bond those two boys so visibly had in the past.

Be aware this is not a romance. Yeah, there are love interests, but falling in love is not the main theme. Glasgow Boys is about love though. It’s about finding your place in the world, finding your people, and, most of all, finding yourself and loving yourself for who you are.

The writing and the story are quite unique and it’s difficult to compare this beautiful story to any other YA book. But if I had to, I’d choose When You Call my Name. A completely different story but somehow those two books both brought up the same feelings in me.

The last page of Glasgow Boys gave me goosebumps. Of happiness. And a part of me now longs for a sequel to follow those two boys into adulthood and see their dreams come true.