Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt

This is a fantastic, horrifying tale of a boy stuck in a childhood of poverty and alcoholism. It is by far the most depressing book I have ever had the pleasure of reading. I read most of the book the Friday night after we chose our memoirs because it was almost impossible to put down. McCourt's writing style is fantastic, flowing, and flawless. The biggest quirk of this book is that there are no quotation marks around the dialogue, something I initially thought would bother me throughout the book. However, McCourt's story is so gripping, and his writing so great that it is hard to pay attention to it. It perhaps even enhances the story, allowing it to flow better. This book was so immersing that when I was on the turbulent loving plane ride to and from Minneapolis, I stopped worrying about how I was about to perish because of the terrible pilots that seemed to know nothing about flying. McCourt's story is truly amazing, and it's a wonder he's alive to tell the tale today with the childhood he had. McCourt had a couple of serious illnesses, deaths of siblings from malnutrition, and on top of that, he was starving all the time because his distant alcoholic father drank away their food. Angela, McCourt's mother, was no help in this, with her bouts of depression and melancholy in light of this terrible condition that her family was in. Through all of  this, he tells his story with poise and dark humor. It such a great book I cannot praise it enough. As the cliche goes, it will make you laugh, and make you cry, and put your "horrible" life in perspective of what a broken home is really like.