This is Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart, winner of the 2020 Booker Prize.
I think for me Shuggie Bain shows well the problem of reading a book with such kudos following it around. As it is prize winning you feel an expectation almost to enjoy it and venerate it as the rest of its reading public has done, which I cannot say I can do.
Shuggie Bain is a wee boy growing up in grim, grinding poverty in Glasgow in the 1980s. His childhood is clouded with abusive adults, intrusive neighbours and his mum's spiralling addiction.
The narrative alternates between perspectives, the majority being Shuggie or his mother Agnes. I felt the story missed many opportunities to create meaningful emotional journeys for the characters. For example, yes Agnes has a notoriously bad time with the men in her life, so she drinks. But where was the psychological effect and thought processes of her treatment? And how is the reader to know why she picked these men in the first place, from the short focuses on her childhood, her later actions don't seem to marry up well to how she acts in later life.
What I suppose I am saying is I felt the characters very one- dimensional. The author attempts to paint Shuggie as this exception to the grimness of life around him, but how are we to believe in this exceptionalism when the reason for it is so obviously given away right from the very beginning ....
I also felt for a prize winning book the language was very contrived, uninspiring and well, basic. The metaphors were forced and cliched. Saying that, others may disagree and I think it is a book to read and definitely make up your own mind about.
I would advise waiting, as this will only add to January blues...
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