The Glass Castle: A Memoir

I loved this book. Walls writes wonderfully, and she also writes generously, making you ache for each character, even (or maybe especially?) those who would normally be the most negative. It's also a surprising book--I had to keep reminding myself of when it takes place, as you feel like you're reading about some Depression-era family, but no--it was in the 1970s! ( )

Wall's non-whining account of her destitute childhood was amazing. She wrote it in such a way that you could feel her determination at the same time that you could feel her frustration. I loved it. It made me realize that maybe my rough childhood wasn't so bad. ( )

The Glass Castle is a painful, poignant, sometimes amusing, often heart-rending account of Jeannette Walls' childhood, beginning with her nomadic life in the American southwest, continuing through her troubled life in West Virginia, and ending with her new life in New York. The author uses a flash back approach for her first chapter - she is an adult, having a discussion with her mother in a restaurant in New York City. We realize that she now lives on Park Avenue and her mother, refusing to take any financial help, is found rooting through a dumpster in the city. Knowing that the ending for Jeannette is going to be reasonably happy helps the reader keep her childhood in some perspective It's awful but she does grow up and grow away from that life.

It isn't so much the poverty in the book as the idea that the poverty appears to be self-imposed. Jeannette's parents are intelligent but incapable of making good decisions as to their family's welfare. They have four children and the children are underfed (putting it mildly), under dressed, dirty, cold, and often friendless. Jeannette manages to see some of the good things about growing up as she did and makes sure to recount this in her book. Other times, she merely states the facts about what was going on without a commentary, moving on to the next section. It can be heart-breaking. It makes you want to shout - "What is wrong with you people! Your children are hungry! What are you thinking??"

The children have each other and they are determined to break the cycle and make something of themselves. The ending of the story is very good - the lives they manage to make for themselves is inspiring. As for the parents - they have the life they seem to want, although sometimes it seems they did want more but were not able to actually accomplish those goals. The father's alcoholism I understand and the problems that leads to, but the mother? She is a piece of work! She seems like she might be mentally ill.

My sister recommended this book to me initially. She bought some used books to send to my niece and this one she happened to read. She was so engrossed she stayed up and read it all night. When my niece finally got around to reading it, the same thing happened to her. I took a couple of weeks to read it, but when I got close to the end, I had to keep on going. I had to find out - how did they escape and end up in New York, away from West Virginia and the nightmare that was their family and their life there?

I have to admire these kids for overcoming tremendous obstacles to become who they are today. ( )

At first, I really did not like this book. But once Walls stopped trying sooooo hard to make the writing style ornate and overdone, it was interesting (and of course, horrifying). I do really wish, though, that some introspection about how she got out could have been more fleshed out beyond just the bootstraps attitude--there was definitely some luck involved, and her sister Maureen's outcome was more likely than hers. ( )

Beautiful and haunting. ( )