The Glass Castle : A Memoir by
Jeannette Walls
"I WAS SITTING IN a taxi, wondering if I had overdressed for the evening, when I looked out the window and saw Mom rooting through..." (more)
First Sentence:
I WAS SITTING IN a taxi, wondering if I had overdressed for the evening, when I looked out the window and saw Mom rooting through a Dumpster. Read the first pageBrowse Sample Pages: Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
First, "The Glass Castle" is a real page turner - - I couldn't put it down and finished it in about four hours - - a record for me!
It's probably the most thoughtful and sensitive memoir I can ever remember reading - - told with such grace, kindness and fabulous sense of humor.
It's probably the best account ever written of a dysfunctional family -- and it must have taken Walls so much courage to put pen to paper and recount the details of her rather bizarre childhood - - which although it's like none other and is so dramatic - - any reader will relate to it. Readers will find bits and pieces of their own parents in Rex and Rose Mary Walls.
Her journey across the country, ending up in a poor mining town in West Virginia and then finally in New York City, is a fascinating tale of survival.
Her zest for life, even when eating margarine and sugar and bundled in a cardboard box with sweaters, coats and huddling with her pets, is unbelievably beautiful - - and motivating.
If I could give a book ten stars, it would be "The Glass Castle."
Jeannette Walls is familiar as a face and voice for MSNBC.com. Her husband is writer John Taylor. Her parents were non conventional and non-conforming, and she was often left to take care for herself.
Through the book I kept looking for bitterness or residual shame just as the author often had to rummage for food in a dumpster but she is so contented and the book is her memoir of thriving and letting go of negative feelings. Her parents, Rex and Rose Mary Walls and their four children had a bizarre existence, but Jeanette is testament to survival and functional achievement regardless of what type of spoon you're born with in your mouth. The spoon in her mouth may have been plastic but she turned her life into gold.
First, "The Glass Castle" is a real page-turner - - I couldn't put it down and finished it in about four hours - - a record for me! The only other book that I did this for was "The Bark of the Dogwood" with its jaw-dropping scenes, hilarity, touching moments, and blow-me-away ending.
It's probably the most thoughtful and sensitive memoir I can ever remember reading (Glass Castle)- - told with such grace, kindness and fabulous sense of humor.
It's probably the best account ever written of a dysfunctional family -- and it must have taken Walls so much courage to put pen to paper and recount the details of her rather bizarre childhood - - which although it's like none other and is so dramatic - - any reader will relate to it. Readers will find bits and pieces of their own parents in Rex and Rose Mary Walls.
Her journey across the country, ending up in a poor mining town in West Virginia and then finally in New York City, is a fascinating tale of survival.
Her zest for life, even when eating margarine and sugar and bundled in a cardboard box with sweaters, coats and huddling with her pets, is unbelievably beautiful - - and motivating.
If I could give a book ten stars, it would be "The Glass Castle." If you enjoy great literature such as "The Children's Corner" by Jackson McCrae, then you'll love "Glass Castle."
What Frank McCourt's, Angela Ashes, did for highlighting the impoverishment of lower class Irish CHILDREN, Jeannette Walls achieves the same for exposing the level of poverty endured by millions of American CHILDREN. The correlations are uncanny.
Both books, as well as many other pieces of contemporary literature, serve do dispel the notion that America is a land of Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best households. Thw two parent unit, the white picket fence, and three-square meals, are almost obsolete concepts.
However, the concept of family and togetherness is still alive and flourishing in America. This is graphically portrayed in The Glass House. Amidst poverty, hunger, alcoholism, depression, and ignorance, a family struggles to stay together, until one-by-one the children take on adult roles and leave the family for what each has discovered is a different life, a better life, a life totally opposite to the life experienced growing up wandering across the southwest and finally ending up in West Virginia.
The pain the children are forced to endure, physically and emotionally,is at times unbearable to read. But you keep reading because the children maintain a sense of hope. You want to find out if hope is enough to change a lifestyle that even Dickens didn't envision in any of his Victorian sagas.
Horray for the children!
Congratulations Jeannette Walls for surviving; for keeping your hope alive, for persevering under the most difficult of obstacles. Thank you for letting us take a glimpse, just a glimpse, at HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES.
The life of Jeannette Walls should inspire everyone who reads The Glass Castle. It is a very moving memoir about it feels likes to be poor. Living with a father who suffered with the disease of alcoholism made her childhood tense and scary, and I think Walls describes this well. She writes very openly about asking her father to stop drinking and to find a steady job to support the family. I think Walls also presents her father as a loving supportive person when he was sober. Walls also urged her mother who dreamed of becoming an artist to get a job teaching to help their family out. I enjoyed reading about the examples in the book that showed her father as a good man. He bought new bicycles for his children and took them to the zoo. He also developed a love of learning in his children. Wells writes very vividly about what it felt like sleeping in cardboard boxes, looking though trash cans and dumpsters for food and eating nothing but popcorn for many days. She also lived in a house with no electricity or indoor plumbing. She developed a sense of resourcefulness of being so poor. She made her own set of braces to straighten out of coat hangers and rubber bands. She also took a job at the age of 13 at a jewerly store to help make ends meet. Wells discovers a love of journalism in high school which became one of the turning points in her life. Her love of writing led to a career as a journalist in New York City. Jeannette Walls has worked hard to achieve the life she now has. The Glass Castle is a touching, inspirational, entertaining memoir of a courageous successful woman, but try it for yourself! Pick up a copy! Another book I need to recommend -- completely unrelated to Jeannette Walls, but very much on my mind since I purchased a "used" copy off Amazon is "The Losers' Club: Complete Restored Edition" by Richard Perez, an original, highly entertaining little novel I can't stop thinking about.
I finished "The Glass Castle" this weekend and am still in awe. Not only is this a life story that is inspiring, but author Jeannette Walls has an incredible writing style. Every word is perfectly placed. I can hear the character's voices. I can see their faces. I can feel their emotions. "The Glass Castle" is a perfectly written memoir. In addition to "The Glass Castle" for similar reasons I also recommend "Fat Girl", "My Fractured Life", and "The Kite Runner."
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