Angela's Ashes vs Wild Swans: Which Should You Read?
Both live on shelves: Irish Americans, Family, Families, Biography & Memoir, Fiction
Angela's Ashes
“My father and mother should have stayed in New York where they met and married and where I was born.”
"When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the…
1 film adaptation
vs
Wild Swans
"Jung Chang vividly evokes China's sights, sounds, and smells to create what must be one of the grimmest, yet most perceptive accounts of growing up middle-class in the maelstrom that has swept China since the 1920s." -…
The verdict
- Ratings are close across the board — any is a safe pick by score.
- Angela's Ashes is the quickest read — about 6 hours vs 13 for Wild Swans.
- Wild Swans has the widest readership — 128589 ratings behind its score.
- Wild Swans runs the darker storyline; Angela's Ashes stays the lighter read.
How to choose
Scores by source
| Angela's Ashes | Wild Swans | |
|---|---|---|
| Goodreads | — | 4.3 (128589) |
| Hardcover | 3.9 (348) | 4.3 (104) |
| Google Books | 5.0 (1) | — |
| Apple Books | 4.5 (628) | 4.5 (187) |
Reception
| Angela's Ashes | Wild Swans | |
|---|---|---|
| Ratings | 628 | 128589 |
| Editions | 101 | 72 |
| Film adaptations | 1 | 1 |
| Want to read | — | 161756 |
| Reading it now | — | 9161 |
| Written reviews | — | 8970 |
| Wikipedia attention | 12998 | 5578 |
| Pages | 364 | 729 |