Five Stars!

I had this on my ToBeRead shelf for a long time. I was afraid of it. Afraid that it would be another chronicle of children suffereing incredible hardship. I had had enough of  the incredible hardship of children of the Holocaust, children of slavery, female children of Hindu and Islamic extremists, children of drunkards.

I ran out of alternatives, and started “Angela’s Ashes”. So surprised and pleased. Yes, Frank McCourt is the child of a drunkard, but his story doesn’t stop there.    It includes the full human story of laughter and weakness and belief and  desperation and hope.  It’s the laughter that got me.  So much of the apocalyptic fiction and speculation, so much of the historic revision, allows no laughter.  And without laughter, would we be human?