Shuggie Bain

1980s Glasgow, Thatcher's Britain. Agnes is glamorous, proud, and slowly drinking herself to ruin. And one by one, everyone around her finds a way to leave. Everyone except Shuggie, her youngest, gentle and quietly different in a world that doesn't know what to do with him. A devastating, tender portrait of unconditional love and what it costs.

Shuggie is at the centre of this book, but it is really the story of a whole family slowly coming apart. You watch poverty and addiction erode every bond, one by one. Douglas Stuart writes it in a way where you understand why each person leaves. You understand, and yet you still want them to take Shuggie with them.

What makes this book so affecting is how trapped everyone is. There is no one to turn to, no safety net, no way out that doesn't cost something. It is a portrait of a society that has abandoned its people, and of what that does to the most vulnerable ones left behind.

I would recommend this to anyone drawn to emotional, gripping fiction. Or to readers who want to read an unfiltered view of what life in Scotland looked and felt like during the Thatcher years. It is a coming-of-age story, but a raw and unsparing one.