How long is it?
464 pages in the Grove Paperback 2020 paperback edition.
Reading facts
✓ Checked- Reading effort
- 56 / 100High
- Length
- 464 pagesGrove Paperback · 2020
- Reading time
- 9 h 15 minat 50 pages an hour ·
- Pace
- Measured
- Emotional intensity
- 5 / 5
About 9 h 15 min · at 30 minutes a day, about 19 days
Estimated from the page count of this edition. Dense books can take longer than the estimate.
About the book
In working-class Glasgow in the 1980s, Shuggie Bain grows up devoted to his mother, Agnes, whose carefully maintained appearance conceals increasingly destructive drinking. His taxi-driver father moves the family to a run-down mining community and leaves them there. As his older siblings seek escape, Shuggie tries to keep Agnes safe while enduring bullying for his feminine mannerisms and practicing how to behave like the boys around him.
Reader notes
Tenderness and bleak domestic detail run through this literary coming-of-age novel, where addiction repeatedly overwhelms family affection. The Glaswegian Scots dialogue can take time to adjust to. Child neglect, sexual assault and suicidal behavior are serious parts of the story, described without much protection from their cruelty.
How it reads
- Writing style
- Atmospheric · Descriptive · Direct · Lyrical
- Tone
- Bleak · Earnest · Intimate · Melancholic
- Structure
- Framed
- Driven by
- Atmosphere · Character · Relationships
- Point of view
- Multiple viewpoints · Third person, limited
- Setting
- Glasgow, Scotland
Reading complexity
- Writing
- 4 / 5
- Ideas
- 3 / 5
- Structure
- 3 / 5
- Background knowledge
- 2 / 5
About this profile
Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).
- Writing
- How much attention the sentences and language require.
- Ideas
- How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
- Structure
- How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
- Background knowledge
- Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
- Emotional intensity
- Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.
Themes
- Addiction
- Class
- Coming of age
- Family
- Love
- Sexuality
Content notes
- Violence
- Strong
- Sexual content
- Strong
- Swearing
- Strong
- Substance use
- Strong
- Abuse
- Strong
- Self-harm or suicide
- Strong
Standing and awards
Highly regarded
- Booker Prize, 2020
- PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel finalist, 2021
- Lambda Literary Awards finalist, 2021
- National Book Award finalist, 2020
- Kirkus Prize finalist, 2020
- Los Angeles Times Book Prizes finalist, 2020
- Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction longlist, 2021
Questions readers ask
Which edition is shown here?
Grove Paperback · 2020 · paperback. ISBN 9780802148506.
How long does it take to read Shuggie Bain?
About 9 hours 15 minutes at 50 pages an hour, based on the 464-page Grove Paperback edition. Dense books can take longer.
About the author
Douglas Stuart
Douglas Stuart is a Scottish-American novelist whose fiction returns to working-class Glasgow, tracing intimate bonds under pressure from poverty, addiction, sectarianism, and enforced masculinity. His prose combines direct social observation with lyrical, atmospheric description, while his plots stay close to vulnerable young men negotiating families that demand both loyalty and silence. Shuggie Bain centers a boy’s devotion to his alcoholic mother amid the isolation and shrinking prospects of a former mining community. Young Mungo shifts to a concealed romance between Protestant and Catholic boys, using gang violence, neglect, and small private gestures to show how tenderness becomes dangerous. Stuart builds these social pressures through domestic crises, bodily threat, and closely observed relationships.
If you liked this
Edition and details
- Publisher
- Grove Paperback
- Publication year
- 2020
- Format
- paperback
- Pages
- 464
- ISBN
- 9780802148506
- Edition language
- English
- Original language
- English
- First published
- 2020
- Genres and form
- Fiction · Literary Fiction · Novel · Literary fiction · Coming of age · Social novel
- Editions
- 16
- Languages
- 3 (English, Portuguese, Unspecified)