At some point, it is probably gonna be a cliché when I once again point out Stuart's writing... but I just can't help myself. Thus far, Shuggie Bain is everything I hoped for. "Hope" feels like the wrong word, as "hope" is not exactly what this book is teeming with. Far from it.

I am tempted to name Glasgow of the 1980s a character in itself in this book, not merely a setting. Stuart repeatedly captures the desperation and hopelessness of the time, as illustrated by the following quote:

The miners' tackety boots made sparks on the tarmac. The men slowly started drifting one by one along the empty road. There was no colliery whistle now; still the men were pushed along by the muscle memory of a dead routine, heading home at finishing time with nothing being finished, only a belly full of ale and a back cowed by worry.

Like... are you kidding? I'm not gonna be able to shut up about this book.