Before I started ‘Young Mungo’ I wondered if Douglas Stuart could use the same world as ‘Shuggie Bain’ and make it feel like a different book. Perhaps he had mined so much of that setting that it would feel overly familiar. I was interested to compare the two.

In many ways ‘Young Mungo’ feels like a sequel to the authors previous Booker prize winning title, as it picks up in the nineties, just where we left Shuggie. Mungo lives in a tenement with his mother ‘mo maw’ (who he loves) and her drunken alter ego ‘Tattie-bogle,’ a shambolic and occasionally pathetic figure, some of whose drunken antics put me in mind of Agnes from Shuggie Bain. But she’s largely an absent mother.

It’s sister Jodie who mostly cares for him, a smart girl whowants away from Agnes, who she largely despises as a bad mother. Also featuring in Mungo’s life is his psychopathic brother Hamish, leader of the local billy boys, who put me in mind of Begbie from transporting. Sectarian violence plays a big part in the schemes.

The heart of this book is Mungo’s friendship with a local Catholic boy, James, who looks after pigeons. Their relationship is evocative and tender, and the dovecote becomes a sanctuary, and they dream of escaping Glasgow.

It’s mostly told about Mungo in the third person, with the occasional short diversion to Jodie and Hamish, and a couple of minor characters, and again, Stuart makes these characters feel just as real. The narrative is divided into alternating chapters - a fishing trip that takes place the ‘may after’ and Mungo’s life ‘the january before,’ so we always know some event has taken place. There’s a creepiness to the fishing trip and a sense of dread that I found hard to shake.

Like Shuggie Bain, this is a completely immersive book. But dare I say it, and I love Stuarts writing, but I found it a bit long. And some of the violence means that it’s definately not for the faint of heart. But that slight criticism aside, this book is an experience, from the vernacular and characters to a world that feels fully realised. There’s few better storytellers than Stuart operating at the momment.

When his books are this good, and such an experience, I hope that Douglas Stuart continues to mine the Glasgow world of his childhood. Emotionally I found this tough going, and the writing is so visceral at time that it punches you in the gut. Would definitely recommend it.

3.5⭐️

The writing is beautiful but for some reason it doesn’t quite manage (similarly to Shuggie Bain) to make me feel for the characters. I think that the prose although well written makes it a bit heavy and verbose and takes away from feeling for or with the characters. Another potential reason is that although very raw and brutal, the overall story felt very YA because of Mungo’s reactions, behaviours and thoughts. I understand that he’s underaged but in such a brutal and cruel world, I would have expected a teen to mature and grow up a bit quicker, especially given the ending of this book. I am not quite sure that the characterisation of Young Mungo was very even throughout the story and some things seemed out of character or a bit unprompted.

The story is also slightly too stretched out to my liking. The pace is really slow (in particular in the beginning) and I’m not sure it added to the story or allowed for any kind of character development…

It is very hard for me to not compare Young Mungo to Shuggie Bain. Some characters are just too similar to let it slide. The mother figure is exactly the same, alcoholic, slightly loving but not parenting type. Shuggie and Mungo have a lot of men around them giving all the wrong and harmful advice while taking advantage of their naivety. Both sisters are looking forward to a better life out of that town and far from everyone. It seems to be a repeating pattern which although realistic becomes less impactful when you read both books in a short time (I read both this year).

I’m also not quite sure about the religious component introduced in this story. Besides adding an additional reason to the forbidden love story, and a very superficial conflict between Protestant and Catholics, I’m not entirely certain it added much to the actual plot or characters. I wish it was more integral to the plot or characterisation or left completely in the background. Here, it’s seems to be very important but without showing that through the story.

Overall, very good portrayal of life and community/family dynamics in a poor 90s Glasgow. The prose although beautiful didn’t allow for enough emotion for me to be completely immersed and empathetic to the characters, letting me a bit down with the YA tone mixed with the horrifying brutality of the events related.



Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an e-ARC of this book!

NB: For a literary book, the amount of time that “shrivelled c*ck” was used is a bit excessive in my opinion. It made me wince every time.

I finished this in early April and it's taken a long time to gather my thoughts on it. I don't think any review I write will convey just how good this book is but here goes...

If Shuggie Bain broke your heart, prepare yourself because Young Mungo will do it all over again.

Similar in premise, Mungo is a young boy growing up in the suburbs of Glasgow in a less than ideal family situation. His mum is too busy with her new boyfriend to concentrate on raising Mungo and his older sister Jodie. Their older brother Hampshire has left home and is pat of a local gang. Jodie has plans to leave Glasgow behind and Mungo wonders where that will leave him. And then he meets James.
Mungo's mum arranges a fishing trip away for him with two strange men to get him away from James. All Mungo wants is the safety of his deepening friendship and love with James.

The writing is sublime. Sublime. It's quite a craft to have such a bleak storyline and make the reader want to return to the story, keep picking it up, and enjoy it. Young Mungo has solidified Douglas Stuart as a must buy author for me. And I don't think I will be the only one.

Wow! What a read. This tells the story of Mungo and James, two young men growing up on opposite sides of the catholic/Protestant divide in Glasgow.
This is not an easy read, there’s a lot in the story about the toxic pressure to be a man and the expectations put on young men in certain families and communities, there are also themes of working class poverty, alcoholism and the the effect it has on a family but also about love. Bother brutal and beautiful. I enjoyed this book.

Young Mungo is Douglas Stuart’s second book. It’s based on a young teenager Mungo, growing up in Glasgow tenements, being raised by an alcoholic mother. He is coming to terms with his own sexuality, trying to navigate his way as a gay boy in a homophobic world where homosexuality is still punishable by imprisonment or worse if tried by local juries. Stuart once again digs deep into the human elements, those suffering & lost, victims of their circumstance. One couldn’t help but feel sorry for Mungo with his insecurities and sense of abandonment, and for all those living in the shadows of those tenement housing schemes. Mungo Hamilton isn’t someone you’re likely to forget in a hurry. The language used reflects the Glaswegian English and the style of story telling jumps between past and present, letting us know how Mungo found himself to be where he is for half the novel, and why he ended up there. It’s a sad story but excellently written once again.

What a spectacularly written book, and my god, the emotions!! This has very easily slotted into my top three reads ever along with A Little Life and A Thousand Splendid Suns (can you tell what kind of reader I am?!)!

Firstly, I adored Mungo, Jodie and James and their characters are so well written. I loved the story line, my heart broke multiple times, I laughed, I got angry, I love this book.

My favourite read of 2022, without a doubt!

Mungo is a character that now holds a very special place in my heart, he’s a character that I know I will never forget and I know that Young Mungo will be read again and again in my house.

Every character Douglas Stuart has created in Young Mungo whether it be a large or small part, whether you hated or loved them, they all come alive and feel so real. It’s one of those stories where you can’t help thinking about the characters when you’re not reading, it’s quite special.

Set in the housing schemes of a working class Glasgow in the early 90’s we follow 15 year old Mungo, a sensitive teenager with a very dysfunctional family. An alcoholic, mostly absent mother, older sister Jodie who has taken on the roll of mum, she wants mungo to further his education in arts and stop him from falling into a life of violence and she wants to escape the future that lies ahead in the housing scheme and continue her education. Then there’s Hamish the eldest brother, leader of the local Protestant gang who wants Mungo to man up and join.

When Mungo falls in love with James a Catholic his mum sends him away for the weekend with a couple of men she met at an AA meeting, a weekend that is supposed to make Mungo man up and forget about James and his sexuality but is a weekend that will change Mungo’s life forever.

Told in 2 timelines Young Mungo is heartbreaking, raw, vivid, beautiful and unforgettable. You can seriously feel the passion in the writing which makes it all the more special. I won’t lie, this is a really tough read at points and books don’t often make me shed a tear but I did and I know I will again and again when I reread.

If you haven’t got yourself a copy yet then I HIGHLY recommend you do, it’s just incredible.

Having recently read Shuggie Bain I was really excited to get my teeth, or rather eyes and brain, into Young Mungo....so much hype around on this the second book by Douglas Stuart...
Again written with all the wonderful Scottish accent and phrases, it did not disappoint. The characters are raw, the lower ends of the social society spectrum when it comes down to financial wealth... Yet the writing is rich, Stuart creating scenarios that could happen anywhere, in any town or city, yet choosing his beloved homeland as the backdrop.
I love his terms of expression, how he puts such fine detail to his protagonist, not only in appearance but also in the emotional and psychological depths. Mungo is a young man on the edge of adulthood, innocent like a child at times whilst living in a mans world..... There were a couple of points where I probably skipped a few lines, my own embarrassment passing me through some of the most descriptive scenes... There is no doubt that Stuart intends to create a flawless image in the writers brain....for me at times all too well and hence the blushes!
Different to Shuggie Bain in many ways, yet again hard-hitting and so very real. Douglas Stuart knows how to pack his punches into his writing, not for the faint-hearted by any means...this was another brilliant example of writing of the very highest ranks.... Admittedly not everyones cup of tea, avoid if you like an easy relaxing book...but if you enjoy a story with real grit and oomph this is one to read,,
Many thanks to NetGalley for my ARC, this is my unbiased review

I tried reading Shuggie Bain last year, which is Stuart's first novel, and I could not finish it. The writing, while captivating and atmospheric, was hard to understand at times because of the Scottish terminology and the attempt at transposing it into the written word. ( and I say this as someone who has been living in Scotland for five years now).
I wonder if this is why both books are rarely listed in recommendations, because of the language specificity. Nonetheless, I pushed myself to complete this book and while I enjoyed the story, many parts felt slow and redundant. The digressions were plenty, meant to artistically paint the bigger picture of Mungo's life.
This is a novel I would recommend to people interested not only in the queer life of a young teen in the 90s, but someone who's acquainted or would like to know more about life in Glasgow, and religious disparities in the city and Scotland as well. Stuart excels at drawing a detailed picture of common life, and common problems.

I’m not crying, I’m not 😢 I’ve literally just finished this beautifully raw, exquisite and poignant book. Douglas Stuart has done it again.

From Glasgow tenements to a loch side bothy, this has everything. And it means everything. I don’t want to spoil this for anyone but needles to say I’m sat here with goosebumps.

The first half of this book is very, very Shuggie. I loved Shuggie so it’s not a negative but I did begin to think it was incredibly similar. Then it suddenly turned to so much more. I just want to burst with telling you all about it but I also need you all to read it.

Please note there are so many trigger warnings; parental loss, alcohol dependency, child abuse, sexual abuse. I had a discussion with my friend recently about Shuggie and Stuart’s writing and we both agreed that the rawness and honesty of it does justice to the experiences of the victims.

My eyes have been opened.

Thank you Netgalley, so much.

As with Shuggie Bain, to read Young Mungo is to let yourself be squeezed, with excruciating slowness, through an emotional wringer. It’s brutal, bleak and raw. Heartbreakingly, gut-wrenchingly sad. But — and this is the wonder of it — it is infused also with the sweet tenderness of first love.

With familiar characters and themes, Young Mungo has many parallels to Stuart’s Booker Prize winner. But don’t be fooled into thinking it’s a rehash. It’s not. Young Mungo stands proud on its own.

Set against the background of a Glasgow divided by poverty, bigotry and sectarianism — Young Mungo is part coming-of-age story, part social commentary, and part love song.

At its heart is 15 year-old Mungo, the youngest of three siblings; a gentle, sensitive boy, at odds with the environment in which he’s been raised. Mother ‘Mo-Maw’ is a neglectful, needy and largely absent alcoholic. Big brother Hamish is a brute, bully and local gang leader. And sister Jodie, the nurturer, the clever one, is set to escape to university.

The only light in Mungo’s life is James, a kindred spirit, who offers him hope of a future far away from the tenements of Glasgow’s East End. But James is Catholic to Mungo’s Protestant, and therein lies the rub; as if owning and hiding his sexuality weren’t enough for Mungo to cope with.

All of this, however, is the back story. In the present, Mungo is on the banks of a Highland loch with two nefarious individuals from his mother’s AA group. He doesn’t know these men. Truth be told, he’s terrified of them: their drinking, crude jokes and sexual advances. So why is he there?

The pieces clang into place like a series of punches to the gut. Stuart leaves little to the imagination, delivering prose that is uncompromisingly graphic, but imbued, nonetheless, with an overwhelming, almost paralyzing, power.

Such power can only come from a place of deep, personal pain and experience. And it does. Once again, Douglas Stuart has blown me away with his raw, authentic storytelling. What a writer, what a book.

This is a story about abuse, poverty, and growing up gay in a world where your life is in danger because of who you are.

I picked up Young Mungo because I read Shuggie Bain by Stuart and absolutely loved it. It was one of my favourite reads of last year (2021) because it portrays a world that is so rarely seen in fiction: that of poverty in Britain.

Stuart sets both Shuggie Bain and Young Mungo in Glasgow in the 1980s/1990s (I’m not entirely sure of the exact date). And both explore the lives of those who live on what are known in Scotland as ‘schemes’ and in England as ‘council estates’. They both feature a young, gay male protagonist with an alcoholic single mother, an older sister, and an older brother. The young protagonist in both books is the one member of the family who still cares about their mother, and wants to look after her.

So my main criticism of Young Mungo shouldn’t come as a surprise. It felt very much like it wanted to be a sequel to Shuggie Bain. But because it’s literary fiction, it couldn’t be (just my interpretation). I appreciate that Stuart is portraying this world in his writing and I think that is an amazing, valuable thing. I just wish that the family in the two books were a bit different. Maybe a different set of siblings, or something different about the mother? I felt like characterization in this book was the weakest point of it. At times I really did feel like I was still reading about Shuggie as I was reading about Mungo. They felt very much one and the same.

But that’s really it for criticisms. Stuart’s writing in Young Mungo fantastic, with a good sense of place and enough description that I could see the world Mungo walks through. I really enjoyed seeing the relationship between Mungo and James develop. Mungo really grows up through that relationship and discovers who he is. This does of course put him in danger, because Mungo is expected to be a ‘man’ by his family. And in this context, being a ‘man’ means being violent, being tough, being the sort of person who gets into trouble with the police. In this way, the book does address ideas around toxic masculinity and the expectations put on young boys, especially those from poor backgrounds.

The biggest difficulty I had reading Young Mungo was the graphic nature of certain scenes. It really is a difficult book to read in places. I had to put it down a few times during certain scenes, and honestly I think that’s a good thing. Stuart’s writing is extremely realistic throughout Young Mungo. I could feel the boy’s terror coming through the pages. Despite their difficult nature, I think it’s important these things are portrayed though, and talked about.

Young Mungo is about the reality of growing up gay in a world where that isn’t acceptable. Which is hard to read about. It made me look at the society we live in today in the UK, and think about how much things have changed in regards to the acceptance of LGBTQ+ relationships and identities. The world Mungo lives in is one that is still very present in places both within the UK and globally. It serves to remind us that some people are still in this kind of danger simply because of who they are.

Overall, I think this is a highly important book, though a difficult one to read. I wish Stuart had made different choices in order to distinguish this from Shuggie Bain a little more. I also wish he had given more depth to the character of Mungo. Stuart seems to be writing primarily from an autobiographical perspective (though I don’t know how much this is based on his life), and his central characters do seem to be him in a lot of ways. But if this pattern continues throughout his work, I feel like his books may become quite repetitive.

I love Young Mungo for all the reasons I loved Shuggie Bain. It portrays a community that I rarely see in fiction, and a time which many seem to want to forget. A time when being LGBTQ+ was not acceptable in British society. These books are massively important. If you can handle reading the difficult scenes in Young Mungo, I would highly recommend it.

This book is not for the faint hearted! It comes with a whole host of trigger warnings.
But I loved it - Protestant Mungo is the youngest of 3 children - his father is dead, his mother is a, sometimes absent. alcoholic, his brother is the local gang leader and his sister, his surrogate mother, has aspirations to leave their area of Glasglow behind. Mungo becomes friends with Catholic, James and they gradually fall in love but thier area, thier religions, the attitudes of their family won't allow it. Mungo's mum arranges for him to go on a fishing trip over a weekend with two of her 'friends' but she clearly knows very little about them.

Everything you hear about this book is true: it really is that amazing. This is an incredibly moving, heartbreaking and tender novel that is utterly absorbing and addictive despite the pain it causes at times.

Sigh. I fell hook, line and sinker for the hype and this was one of my most anticipated novels of the year. Which is weird, because despite only reading Stuart's debut novel last year, Shuggie Bain has paled in my estimations since then. I convinced myself I loved the novel because everyone had raved about it (almost all of my GR friends have rated it 5*). Don't get me wrong, there were some turns of phrase that I loved and sections of it that grabbed me, but it felt like I'd missed something that everyone else had seen in the novel, so I told myself that objectively it was well written and a moving story (I still think this) but looking back my personal enjoyment of the book was definitely more at a 3* sort of level.

Fast forward to this year with Stuart's highly anticipated sophomore novel being published to much fanfare and more author events that you can shake a stick at (I've signed up to two myself!). Many early reviews of Young Mungo hinted that the follow up novel covered much of the same terrain, but I was keen to go in with an open mind - maybe I'd just read Shuggie Bain at the wrong time and hadn't been in the right mood for it. I would agree that the similarities between the two novels are numerous: both include alcoholic and neglectful mothers, both protagonists live in Glasgow, are gay, have an elder brother and sister (violent brother, mother-figure/responsible sister) and are close to said mother despite her personal failings and issues. The stories are both pretty grim and bleak, with basically every trigger warning you could possibly think of being apt. I think where the two books differ is that Young Mungo has a dual timeline going on and is a more complex narrative overall. Whilst Shuggie Bain was a long novel it felt reasonably well paced, whereas SO much of the writing in Young Mungo felt like it wasn't progressing the plot in the slightest and failed to hold my interest.

It feels a bit reductive to compare the two, but this is almost like A Little Life at times: relentless misery porn. I fell in the camp of people who loved A Little Life... unfortunately I fall in the opposite camp for Young Mungo. Readers who loved Shuggie Bain will likely find something to enjoy here, if they don't mind a slight re-working of the same themes and characters. I'm sad to say that I got sucked in to the hype and also sad that this didn't work for me, and I will try to learn my lesson in this instance.

Summary: Mungo Hamilton is a young Protestant boy growing up in the East end of Glasgow. With a dead father, violent brother and absent mother, he gets his love and protection from his older sister Jodie. That is until he meets James, except, James is a Catholic and their worlds shouldn’t collide in their society.

Thoughts: This book was beautifully written, heartbreaking and thoroughly captivating. I was worried initially as I’d heard mixed reviews from friends about Shuggie Bain and still haven’t got round to read this yet but, I loved Douglas Stuart’s writing style. It was raw, authentic and yes, in places upsetting and uncomfortable, but so is Mungo’s life. I urge you to pick this book up and read this heartbreaking romance for yourself

I was late to read Shuggie Bain, only reading it at the end of last year and loved the writing even though the content was so dark. I knew this book was going to cover hard topics too but I found myself even more immersed in Mungo's world than I had been with Shuggie.

The writing is so realistic and clever that you are properly drawn in to the story and all the characters were believable. The book follows the story of Protestant Mungo and his first love Catholic James. It is set in working class Glasgow. I thought the portrayal of events showed both the horror of the violence and the pointlessness of it. The relationships between Mungo and his family were heartbreaking as were a lot of his experiences in his young life.

This book will break your heart but you should absolutely read it!

Stuart returns to his hometown of Glasgow to produce another gritty book . A story of two young men finding love with each other under difficult circumstances and facing the problems surrounding them .

It’s hard not to compare Stuart’s second novel to his huge hit of Shuggie Bain. We’re still in north Glasgow, witnessing the coming of age of a young gay man with an alcoholic mother. But there’s a tiny bit more joy in Young Mungo, of first love and hope for the future, and the ending is just open enough to let us have hope too. The story is told in dual timelines that meet at the end; one which follows Mungo at home, looking after his mother and seeking friendship where he can. There’s so much to recognise in the Glasgow that Stuart depicts and I’m pretty sure that I live in one of the “new houses, half-built and generously spaced, made of bright orange brick” that Mungo and James see on the bike ride to their first romantic encounter. More than that, I thought the tackling of sectarianism was brave - still such a massive part of living in the west of Scotland and a touchy subject for many - and I’m really interested to see how that ongoing conflict is received by an American audience.

Young Mungo

Douglas Stuart has done it again. . While it’s very similar to Shuggie Bain, it’s a different story altogether. Mungo is the youngest of three children living with an alcoholic mother, his brother is the local hard man while his sister is struggling to get to college and to look after Mungo. . Once again this story is set in Glasgow, where young Mungo is struggling to survive in a world of sectarian hatred and bigotry. Written in two timelines, we first meet Mungo as he is heading off with two men (friends of his mothers from AA) on a fishing weekend, the second one tells us of the events leading up to this.
The cast of characters is wonderful from Hamish, Mungo’s elder brother through to Poor-Wee-Chickie, the neighbour who lives downstairs.
I absolutely loved this book, it is a heartbreakingly beautiful story. For me it’s a five ⭐️ Star at the very least…