Review: Angus: A Story About Finding Home by Mark Leon Reeves #MiddleGrade

Summary:
Angus McGuire is a thirteen-year-old boy with a very happy life until tragedy strikes. Angus must overcome tremendous adversity to find his way to his true home in life. 

My review:
Note: Being from the area the author writes about and knowing the author personally made this an interesting read. It would be easy to say that I am biased with the below review due to those two facts. However, I am reviewing based on the book alone and no other reasons. ~Michelle
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Angus is only 13 when his father dies of tragic circumstances leaving him in the care of an estranged uncle. He suffers personal anguish from his losses, abuse, and more. His circumstances are not over the top but certainly heart-wrenching. He finds friendship in the most unlikely place but has to put that aside for survival which finds him in the wilderness for quite some time before "finding home."

I thoroughly enjoyed the flow of the book although at first, it seemed to go in a different direction. The author skillfully managed to make the story work and the first couple of chapters made sense to the rest of the book. It was a bit slow paced at first but it was also necessary in order to get to the real meat of the story. The ending was fast paced and sweet. In fact, it left me longing for a bit more.

I am aware that this is a first in a series so, the things I am mentioning here, I hope have now been fixed. I sometimes felt the author was talking directly to me the reader or inserting his own thoughts as opposed to the character. It distracted me a couple of times but not so much to take away from the book itself. The author was also able to work it right back to the character's thoughts and actions which made those little faux pas okay.

The only other issue I had was the insertion of a couple of profanity words. I did not see them as necessary and truthfully caught me by surprise considering that this book is targeted toward younger students.  However, I am not so naive to not know that kids this age would also be using such words.

Although I loved Angus and loathed others, I found Angus to be an incredible 13-year old to know so much about how to survive, even though it was written that he looked these things up on the net. It seemed almost too good to be true and not as realistic as I think 13-year-olds to be. It seemed almost too contrived. However, for an adventurous middle-grade kid reading the book, it would also just be pure awesomeness!

Overall, though, I enjoyed this book. I related to many of the places mentioned in the book and enjoyed the references to books that were obvious inspiration for the writing of this book. Having been a first in a series, I think the author did a great job and I look forward to his next book in the series. 4 stars

Disclosure: I purchased a Kindle copy of this book for my own personal use. The views here are 100% my own and may differ from yours. ~Michelle aka Naila Moon

Where to find the author:

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