The Glass Castle: A Memoir (Paperback) by Jeannette Walls - Reviews, Discussion, Bookclubs, Lists

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06/22/07

Tim rated it:

Read in April, 2007

Let me go on record by saying that I’m slightly annoyed by memoirs. It’s not that I dislike biography — in fact I enjoy a good autobiographical yarn — it’s that the book industry did us all a disservice back in the 90’s when they decided that everything from gardening books to cookbooks to political commentary would be better presented if they were somehow crafted into memoir-like tales that gave the reader an idea of why the author is writing about a particular subject.

H...more Let me go on record by saying that I’m slightly annoyed by memoirs. It’s not that I dislike biography — in fact I enjoy a good autobiographical yarn — it’s that the book industry did us all a disservice back in the 90’s when they decided that everything from gardening books to cookbooks to political commentary would be better presented if they were somehow crafted into memoir-like tales that gave the reader an idea of why the author is writing about a particular subject.

Having said that, you may imagine that I didn’t particularly enjoy reading Jeanette Walls’ memoir The Glass Castle for our most recent book club selection. You would be correct. Oddly enough, it didn’t have anything to do with its memoir format, as I knew going in it was going to be a memoir, but had everything to do with me simply not believing it.

The novel (ostensibly) tells the story of a young girl growing up in a family that not only defines dysfunctional, but could quite possibly add another chapter to the DSM-V. Walls’ father suffers from alcoholism (and quite possibly manic-depression), her mother suffers from low self-esteem (or some similar “enabling” personality trait), while the kids suffer from poverty, pyromania, dissociative disorder, and in the case of the youngest child, possibly Pentecostalism.

Walls spends the bulk of the book talking about her family’s migratory ways and her father’s lack of steady employment, pushing them all into a life of gypsy romanticism. I say romanticism because Walls continually portrays the family as having a certain charm that makes you want to keep reading, even though such a situation should strike fear and revulsion in anyone’s heart.

For whatever reason, I found myself completely unconvinced. The fact that Walls, who spent most of her childhood bouncing from school system to school system and eventually dropped out to move to New York, wound up in an Ivy League college without any real explanation, seemed not only vague but put the final nail in the coffin of my disbelief.

Granted, I’ll be the first to cop to that old adage: it takes a bullshitter to know a bullshitter. But even the mildest of cynics would likely leave this book wondering why the author spent so much time talking about her struggles as a child, only to reveal her sudden success without so much as a chapter to discuss the work it took to get where she is now.

For me, that’s the problem with this book. Why write a memoir if you’re only going to retell a difficult childhood? The reason memoirs caught on in the first place is because the Oprah-induced “self help” generation love reading books about how people overcome obstacles in order to make something of their life. (less)

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01/21/08

Tracy rated it:

bookshelves: read-and-liked-it

Read in May, 2007

recommended to Tracy by: my mom
recommends it for: general audience

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

Book Review: The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

Jeannette Walls proves in her astounding memoir that bad parenting and abject poverty do not necessarily condemn children to a dismal future of the same. In "The Glass Castle" published in 2005 by Scribner, Walls reveals the intimate details of her upbringing within a dysfunctional yet loving family.

"The Glass Castle" immediately grips you with an opening scene in which Walls, as an adult in New York Cit...more

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05/08/08

Krenzel rated it:

(review of isbn 0743247531)

bookshelves: ala-notables

Read in May, 2008

"The Glass Castle" is a memoir written by gossip columnist Jeanette Walls, which details her unconventional childhood growing up with an alcoholic father and a mother who seems to be mentally ill. Walls begins the book by explaining what has prompted her to write about her family: after she has "made it" and become a successful writer living in New York, she comes across her mother picking trash out of a dumpster and, in shame, slinks down in her taxi seat and pretends not ...more "The Glass Castle" is a memoir written by gossip columnist Jeanette Walls, which details her unconventional childhood growing up with an alcoholic father and a mother who seems to be mentally ill. Walls begins the book by explaining what has prompted her to write about her family: after she has "made it" and become a successful writer living in New York, she comes across her mother picking trash out of a dumpster and, in shame, slinks down in her taxi seat and pretends not to see or know her. Later, Walls confronts her mother, asking what she is supposed to tell people about her parents, and her mother replies, "Just tell the truth. That’s simple enough."

Of course, "The Glass Castle" is anything but simple, as Walls attempts to come to terms with her upbringing. The first third of the memoir deals with her young childhood on the west coast, as her parents live as nomads, moving frequently between desert towns, always seeking the next adventure. Walls' mother is the key figure we meet here: an artist and a writer, she seems to live in her own world and doesn't express much concern in the practical realities of raising her children. In a key passage, Walls' mother takes the kids with her to give them art lessons, as she paints and studies the Joshua tree. Walls tells her mother of her plan to dig up the tree, replant it, and protect it so it can go straight. Walls' mother admonishes her, "You'd be destroying what makes it special. It's the Joshua tree's struggle that gives its beauty." This appears to be Walls' mother's philosophy of life – looking for the next struggle – as the family willingly gives up its nice residence in Phoenix that Walls' mother had inherited from her family to move to the father's home town – a depressed coal town in West Virginia.

The family's time in West Virginia makes up the next third of the story and depicts a depressed life in a depressed town. It is in West Virginia where the family seems to drift apart, particularly Walls' father, who up to this point, had been worshipped and revered by his daughter. Like Walls' mom, her dad has a lot of imagination; while he takes odd jobs that never last long, his real dream is to strike it rich with one of his inventions. He promises, once he has found his gold, that he is going to build a "glass castle" – his most special project – a great big house for the family to live in. Once in West Virginia, Walls and her brother figure they will make the best of the situation, and they spend a month digging a hole in the ground to serve as the foundation for the glass castle. But because the family can't pay for trash collection, their father instructs them instead to use the hole for the family's garbage. Although she has always been her father's defender, Walls grows disillusioned with her father, eventually telling him he will never build the glass castle.

Determined not to end up like her parents, Walls moves to New York, where the last third of the book transpires. It is here that Walls "makes it," graduating from college, gaining employment as a writer, marrying a rich husband, and settling into a Park Avenue apartment. Interestingly, while Walls has rejected her parents' lifestyle, it is now their turn to reject hers. Her father refuses to visit the Park Avenue apartment, while her mother, after visiting the apartment, asks Walls, "Where are the values I raised you with?" At this point, it is a mystery what values Walls actually possesses. By crafting the memoir around stories of her childhood, we as readers are often troubled, not just because of the content of the stories but because the stories don't provide much in the way of reflection or introspection. It is, in fact, unclear what Walls actually does value – will she continue to identify success with the material trappings of her "normal" life in New York, or will she ultimately reject the conventional life, as her parents did? Without more reflection from Walls, particularly in this concluding section of the book, readers are left to their own interpretation of "the truth" about her parents – are they just a drunk father and a lazy mother, or is there something more to it?

The "Glass Castle" is an addicting page-turner that should captivate any reader. However, without this reflection and introspection from Walls about her childhood, the book misses an opportunity to make a more lasting impact on readers and ultimately fails to reach the level of a work like "Angela’s Ashes." In the end, it is up to readers to make up their own minds about "the truth" of Walls' parents and her upbringing and what it all means. I chose to discount some of her parents' flaws and instead read this book as an homage to her parents. To me, the key passage in the book is when Walls visits a classmate's home in West Virginia and sees the empty walls in the house (in stark contrast to her own home, which is cluttered with paintings and books and decorations) and rejects the notion that her classmate's father, passed out on the couch, bares any resemblance to her own father. After Walls recounts the story to her family, her mother replies that she should show compassion for her classmate because not everybody has "all the advantages you kids do." Although the statement is ironic on its face, as the family fights over the crumbs of a chocolate bar, the distinction is clear: Walls' family may not provide her with much in the way of tangible goods, but they give her things that are more lasting – a belief in herself, a passion for reading and writing, an appreciation for things a lot of us take for granted, and most of all love. In the end, it was not important whether her parents actually built her a glass castle. It was that they gave her the idea of a glass castle. By overcoming her shame for her parents and writing this memoir, Walls seems to recognize this truth about her parents – that, like the Joshua tree, there was beauty in their struggle.

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06/25/08

Steve Gallup rated it:

Read in April, 2006

One reviewer of this book dares us to put it down. Actually, the majority of the people in a group that read it with me did choose not to finish. I was one of the few who got to the end.

"The Glass Castle" is most definitely a page-turner. Without question, the consistently short chapters and the continuing barrage of extraordinary events make reading easier than stopping.

My own objection to it while reading was the absence of emotional response on the narrator...more One reviewer of this book dares us to put it down. Actually, the majority of the people in a group that read it with me did choose not to finish. I was one of the few who got to the end.

"The Glass Castle" is most definitely a page-turner. Without question, the consistently short chapters and the continuing barrage of extraordinary events make reading easier than stopping.

My own objection to it while reading was the absence of emotional response on the narrator's part. The author has been rightly praised for avoiding self-pity, but you just know she's leaving things out. Consider the part, very early on, when she is in the hospital and the family tells her she has won a helicopter ride. "I was thrilled," she writes. But in the next sentence her mother blithely goes on to say that the rest of the family has already enjoyed the ride without waiting for their little girl to get out of the hospital. Walls gives us no reaction at all to this outrage. Instead, she moves directly into an account of how her father threatens the doctor and then how nurses show the pity for her that she won't put on display herself.

The absence of emotion was explained to me by one reader on the grounds that it would have slowed down the all-important tempo. OK. So we're left with an unremitting series of events like the above and minimal reflection on them. As someone who has been writing a memoir of my own, I've learned that failing to provide reactions to events will draw complaints from almost every reader. I can't help wondering how Walls gets away with this.

My friends who gave up on the book did so because, at some point, they lost patience with that ongoing series of events that seemed to lead only to worse and worse situations.

The other concern did not occur to me while reading the book, but it came up afterwards in discussion. There's little doubt that the basic elements of the story are true -- that the children in her family suffered the effects of having parents who were alcoholic, mentally ill, and pathologically irresponsible -- and yet some nagging little questions undermine it.

Just to pick one example: How believable is it that a small child, huddled fearfully under the blankets after seeing her grandmother sexually molest her brother, would hypothesize that their father had been similarly abused when he was little, and that this could explain his odd behavior? I think it's much more likely that this insight occurred to the author years later. But to keep the momentum going strong, she didn't want to step in with that perspective. So she lets her third-grade self, barely surviving in Appalachian poverty in (I presume) the 1960s, suddenly become a psychologist. When you stop to think about it, that's more jarring than a comment from the adult author would have been.

What this review seems to be saying is that I, as a reader, feel manipulated. We are shown some tough little kids, kids who walk away from a gunfight with no sign of trauma other than the narrator's regret at being forced to abandon a rock collection, and we still don't know what makes them tick. Walls has taken her story, which again I'm sure is basically true, and in the interests of maximizing commercial success has shaped it in a way that perhaps sacrifices an understanding of how the kids survived.

Perhaps I'm being too hard on her. Please balance this review against the others and draw your own conclusions. I'm not sorry to have read it, but I don't feel that anything was gained from having done so.(less)

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11/15/07

Angela rated it:

bookshelves: bookclub, memoir, nonfiction

Read in November, 2007

I guess I have a somewhat different frame of reference than several of the reviewers here. I can relate to many of the lessons she learned, and as such, I never had an issue believing her. These things can and do happen. The system fails children, and addicts (whether they're addicted to alcohol or excitement) will seek their fix above all else. As long as the addiction is in the picture, the person just doesn't exist. Children in alcoholic families eventually become aware of this, and the ...more

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01/11/08

Marcie rated it:

recommended to Marcie by: Cheryl

Once I let my frustration with the parents' neglect go, I actually enjoyed this book. Because of her matter-of-fact, non-whining writing, I enjoyed reading this book the entire time and actually put off other things so I could read more. As a disclaimer to my following comments, I am in no way condoning all of their parenting style and I also acknowledge they did not provide for their children like a parent should, but I have to say that I learned quite a bit from her parents! The positive th...more Once I let my frustration with the parents' neglect go, I actually enjoyed this book. Because of her matter-of-fact, non-whining writing, I enjoyed reading this book the entire time and actually put off other things so I could read more. As a disclaimer to my following comments, I am in no way condoning all of their parenting style and I also acknowledge they did not provide for their children like a parent should, but I have to say that I learned quite a bit from her parents! The positive things from this book stuck with me, not the negative ones, so that is what my comments will be about.
The description of her growing up years gave me ideas and motivation of how to be passionate about hobbies and life in general. Her parents taught me how to make learning fun and to see the potential in people and situations (i.e."this house needs fixing, but it has good bones"). I went away from this book with a desire to have more vigor and creativity in life and to pass that on to my children (i.e. the mom bought tons of shoes from thrift stores and played classical/jazz/country/etc. music and they danced around having a ball while learning all about different genres of music).
I also feel that we've become too much of "helicopter" parents -- hovering over our children making sure we direct every thought and action they have. We see this as helping, but I think it is actually detrimental to their own learning and growth. We are seeing the effects of dependent, inexperienced college-aged kids (this was most notable in southern CA). I think many of life's lessons could and should be learned at home, which means a loosening of the reins so that mistakes are still made while we are around to help as parents. Granted, in the book, her parents take this self-learning to an extreme, but I still learned from it. My perception is that (the US) society labels you as a "bad parent" if your child is allowed to 1)fall off a slide at the playground, 2)go without their snack one day at school if they forgot it(vs. you bringing it to them), 3) sort out a (non-physical) fight they got in with a friend without a parent getting involved, etc.
I also found it amusing that she had such hard time accepting that her mom wanted to be homeless. I can understand how she'd still be embarrased or get tired of having to explain to people, but I agreed with her mom when she said that her daughter had the problem with esteem because she still worried about what other people thought.
Anyway, it got me thinking so much about what's most important in life and how important love is (I never once doubted her parents love for her and she gave the impression that she never did either) that I highly recommend it! I had a couple friends that didn't like it, mostly because they couldn't get past things like her digging in trash cans at school because she was so hungry('People like that shouldn't be allowed to have kids' they said). But it was all the other things I learned (naming a star for your birthday) that makes me want to read it again.(less)

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05/29/07

lkt rated it:

Read in July, 2006

From my Amazon.com review:

"Sometimes people get the lives they want..."

A stunning memoir, hard to put down. Walls is superb with details, a true genius. She is a fine example of a self-made, successful person. But throughout most of the book, I was so angry with the parents, her mother in particular:

When the kids had nothing to eat, she hid a king-sized Hershey bar in her bed for herself. She had an excuse for her behavior, whining ...more From my Amazon.com review:

"Sometimes people get the lives they want..."

A stunning memoir, hard to put down. Walls is superb with details, a true genius. She is a fine example of a self-made, successful person. But throughout most of the book, I was so angry with the parents, her mother in particular:

When the kids had nothing to eat, she hid a king-sized Hershey bar in her bed for herself. She had an excuse for her behavior, whining that she's a "sugar addict." (And later, she refuses to get a job (or keep one, when she gets them) because she's an "excitement addict." Really, it seems like she's rather immature and lazy. How exciting is it to sleep all day or have tantrums about blaming her children for her failures as an artist?)

When Brian and Jeannette found the diamond ring, they could have used it to buy necessities like food and clothes, but their mother needed it for her precious self-esteem. She really lacks motivation to get up and do something about their deplorable living conditions, but is too selfish to do so.

When Uncle Stanley groped Jeannette, he mother didn't seem too concerned and actually felt sorry for the uncle, believing him to be lonely!

She refuses Welfare, despite the fact that her pride is harming her children, a form of child abuse and negligence. They are living in squalor but it's supposed to be an "adventure." The house is filthy with the mold, trash, mushrooms growing in the corners, and the lack of heat and indoor plumbing. It is not an acceptable environment and I'm surprised the gov't man didn't come back. If you really love your children, you should provide for them, even if you hate charity. Instead, she spends most of her time feeling sorry for herself, if she isn't pursuing her true calling as an artist.

And when she doesn't go back to one of her teaching jobs, she reasons, "It's time I did something for myself..It's time I started living my life for me...Why do I have to earn the money? You [Jeannette] have a job." It just made me so angry to hear her talk that way to her own daughter. She has no sense of responsibility. "I've got more important things to do," she also said.

For all her artistic ideals, she is whiny, pathetic, seems to care more about strangers and stray animals than her children. And it was ridiculous how she didn't want to kill the flies and cockroaches, and felt sorry for the big rat in the sugar bowl. She is encouraging the unhealthy conditions by keeping pests alive, so it seems that while she doesn't want to deprive insects and animals of food ("they need to eat too"), it's ok if her children starve.

And no, I'm not forgetting the father. I must admit that I had a soft spot for him, despite his alcoholism. He at least attempted to be a father, showing love to Jeannette and making her feel special,educating her on many subjects. I got teary when reading about how he read the same books on Jeannette's college reading lists so he could help her with any questions. He was more interested in her life than her mother was. But I was disgusted with Rex when he let the man at the bar take her upstairs. Definitely not a saint, but much more likeable than the mom in my view.

I really admired Jeannette in the poli-sci class, when the prof is talking about the causes of homelessness. It cannot always be blamed on drugs and SS cuts - there is a degree of personal responsibilty, as I alluded to in the title of this review. As Jeannette said, "If people worked hard and compromised...they could make ends meet." It angered the prof but I was proud of her. I wish she had told the truth about her background though.

Yes, I'm hard on the parents, but they make me admire the author even more, for breaking free from the traps of her parents' self-made poverty. She never gave up, and I know that if I'd been in her shoes, I wouldn't have made it. (less)

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05/23/07

Kate rated it:

bookshelves: nonfiction

Read in August, 2007

This book really made me angry--why can people who have absolutely no business having kids be able to have four?

Let me backtrack...

In the beginning, the Walls family is always on the run. The father is an alcoholic, who is intelligent, but believes everything upon everything is a conspiracy. He can't get a job because of the mafia, the government, the gestapo...The mother has a teaching degree, but chooses to be an artist. The family is barely able to scrape by; the fa...more

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09/17/07

Juliet rated it:

Okay, I originally gave this one star but then had to go back and re-rate it to a two b/c I surprised a couple of you guys and in my impulsive way, I realized perhaps one star was a bit too knee jerk.

It's not that I hated The Glass Castle, it's just that it irritated me with its self-conscious narrative style. Too much "look at how horrible things were!" and not enough detail or challenges to make me really care.

The same stories are told and re-told throughout t...more

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07/08/08

Polly rated it:

Read in March, 2008

recommended to Polly by: abbysmom

A friend suggested that I read The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls a few months ago, and I have to admit when she first described it I was a bit leery. I thought it was going to be one of those “poor pitiful me” sagas about growing up with shitty parents. But I had heard a few things on the news about this woman and figured it was worth a try.

First and foremost this book is anything but a “poor pitiful me” story. Is they author’s life difficult? Oh my gosh yes. That wo...more A friend suggested that I read The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls a few months ago, and I have to admit when she first described it I was a bit leery. I thought it was going to be one of those “poor pitiful me” sagas about growing up with shitty parents. But I had heard a few things on the news about this woman and figured it was worth a try.

First and foremost this book is anything but a “poor pitiful me” story. Is they author’s life difficult? Oh my gosh yes. That would be the understatement of the century. But the way she tells her story is incredibly refreshing. Every hardship is presented in such a matter-of-fact manner that you don’t get the sense that she is trying to elicit sympathy. Rather she’s just telling you about her life. There are moments, too, when I think she relishes in the fact that she unflinchingly faced these harsh circumstances and beat them (sometimes literally).

There are times though I felt she was too blase about the neglect and abuse she and her siblings experienced. I wanted her to get angry and scream “WHY ME?!?!” a few times. But ultimately I think it was her mechanism for dealing with such a (for lack of a better phrase) fucked up life. She didn’t give the circumstances too much weight, and therefore they had little power to control her and drag her down.

However, it is impossible to read this book and not want to strangle these parents. If you looked up neglect in the dictionary, you’d find their picture. Not only did they fail to supervise and protect their children from, oh, say, the dangers of cooking over an open flame, but they also turned a blind eye to all sorts of physical abuse from other family members and friends. The phrase, “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” MUST have been invented by Rex and Mary Walls. It is their excuse for everything.

And yet, there are moments when you find it hard to completely hate these two people. In between the frustration and anger that their actions stir up, there are moments of good parenting. I loved how they treated their children like little adults when it came to education. There was no Elmo or Barney or Dora. Instead they taught them about the stars and physics and read great literary works to them. These kids grew into incredibly intelligent people because they were exposed to all kinds of information. I’m sure at the time the parents were simply indulging their own interests, but it rubbed off on these kids in a way that flash cards and writing lines of spelling words never could. It created an insatiable curiosity about the world around them, which proved to be their only saving grace in the end.

This is a jaw dropping account of one woman’s life, and it is unlike any other memoir I’ve ever picked up. Definitely add this to your must-read list.

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02/27/08

Scot rated it:

Read in March, 2008

I know many people love this book, remarking on how powerful and moving it was, but I had some deep problems with the narrator's memory process, and some issues about what lessons I was ultimately supposed to learn here. It is a riveting tale, full of unforgettable suffering, strife, and perseverance, about growing up with two bohemian-minded parents, one a raging alcoholic and the other a manic depressive. It is the story of the dangerous synergy that combination produced, and how the narrato...more

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01/31/08

Rachel rated it:

"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."

Okay, this may be a long one...I knew nothing of this book outside of the title sounding familiar when I picked it up to listen to during data entry. And it took one sentence...only one sentence to know that this was a different kind of book...and to know I wouldn't be able to stop listening to it until the end. Think back to how man...more "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."

Okay, this may be a long one...I knew nothing of this book outside of the title sounding familiar when I picked it up to listen to during data entry. And it took one sentence...only one sentence to know that this was a different kind of book...and to know I wouldn't be able to stop listening to it until the end. Think back to how many books you can say that about.

Because I don't think I could describe the story any better...borrowed from a review on Amazon...."In The Glass Castle, Walls chronicles her upbringing at the hands of eccentric, nomadic parents--Rose Mary, her frustrated-artist mother, and Rex, her brilliant, alcoholic father. To call the elder Walls's childrearing style laissez faire would be putting it mildly. As Rose Mary and Rex, motivated by whims and paranoia, uprooted their kids time and again, the youngsters (Walls, her brother and two sisters) were left largely to their own devices. But while Rex and Rose Mary firmly believed children learned best from their own mistakes, they themselves never seemed to do so, repeating the same disastrous patterns that eventually landed them on the streets. Walls describes in fascinating detail what it was to be a child in this family, from the embarrassing (wearing shoes held together with safety pins; using markers to color her skin in an effort to camouflage holes in her pants) to the horrific (being told, after a creepy uncle pleasured himself in close proximity, that sexual assault is a crime of perception; and being pimped by her father at a bar)."

I think this was an amazing book but I'll be honest and say that about halfway through I really started to get mad. Like I said, I didn't know anything about this book so didn't know it was a memoir. About the time the family gets to West Virginia (where I grew up), was when I started to wonder what exactly was happening. Either this author read every book about WV they could and just threw in the absolute worst stereotypes they could find...and if so, this was making me mad. OR. I started hearing real names and places, real situations and so I grabbed the jacket cover and found out that all this really did happen to this woman. And the anger melted and the fascination and let's face it, horror, came back.

I was looking at reviews and then I was looking at some questions for the reader and one in particular just struck me because it was something i was thinking about the entire way through the book. How long does it take you to come to the conclusion that the parents are 'bad'--or do you? And why this thought crossed my mind was that through the very beginning portion of the book, though on occasion, I had to cock my head and say 'seriously?' to something insane the parents did, I was actually pretty impressed with some of their philosophies. Then you progress to the middle section of the book and it's reversed...you wonder how a child could survive being brought up with these parents, but on occasion, they'd do something actually fairly interesting again and I'd cock my head and say 'really?', before I'd go back to wondering where the hell child welfare was in all this. You can't forget that these kids had to rummage through garbage because of some incredibly selfish things that the parents did and that apparently attempted sexual molestation is simply a 'perception'. But I also couldn't forget that some of the things they tried to teach their kids (dangers of being materialistic for example), are pretty valuable lessons. Just this dichotomy itself is why I say READ IT. And don't just read it...THINK ABOUT IT.(less)

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01/05/08

Kim rated it:

Read in April, 2008

recommended to Kim by: Valerie (thanks by the way)

Holy. Freakin'. Crap

I planned on writing some light hearted banter about how I would subject my ungrateful kids to this during family reading hour but after having such trouble stomaching what this woman went through, to do so would be completely unwarranted.

And they call this YA? What's happened in the last 25 years that made society believe that our kids could handle this? I just finished The Book Thief and had drawn a similar conclusion. What happened to the Judy Bl...more

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06/20/07

Michele rated it:

Read in December, 2006

Like a Phoenix From the Ashes

I have no doubt as to why this book was recommended by to me, given my taste for well-written memoirs and my affinity for books like "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," by Betty Smith and "Angela's Ashes" by Frank McCourt. This completing engrossing tale of Jeannette Walls and her rise from the ashes of an extremely difficult childhood is on a par with both Smith's classic, and McCourt's Pulitzer Prize winning efforts.

"The Gl...more

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03/29/08

Marika Gillis rated it:

bookshelves: memoirs---auto-biographies

Read in March, 2008

This New York Times bestseller is an exquisitely written memoir. Jeannette Walls tells the story of growing up with free-spirited, irresponsible parents who lived life as an adventure and avoided obligation and domesticity. Jeannette's alcoholic father was strikingly intelligent and charming while simultaneously frightening in his carelessness. He rarely held down a job and squandered any money the family found to support his alcohol addiction. Her mother, an avid reader and dedicated artist, wa...more

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03/15/08

stacey rated it:

Read in March, 2008

recommends it for: memoir-enthusiasts, people who think they have it bad.

This is the first memoir I've read in a long time and I'm not entirely sure what to make of it. The author (Jeannette Walls) tells the story of her upbringing, beginning at the age of three and continuing until she's an adult. Her family (2 parents and 4 children) begin moving from state to state as soon as the father has stirred up enough trouble or incurred enough debt to have to flee. Their living conditions seem to grow worse and worse throughout the story. The father (Rex) is an alcohol...more This is the first memoir I've read in a long time and I'm not entirely sure what to make of it. The author (Jeannette Walls) tells the story of her upbringing, beginning at the age of three and continuing until she's an adult. Her family (2 parents and 4 children) begin moving from state to state as soon as the father has stirred up enough trouble or incurred enough debt to have to flee. Their living conditions seem to grow worse and worse throughout the story. The father (Rex) is an alcoholic who is also in his own way lovable and intelligent, while being destructive and aloof. He's the character you don't want to like but end up feeling tenderly towards despite yourself. The mother (Rose Mary) is possibly mentally ill (though to my disappointment, her motivations for doing or NOT doing things is never fully fleshed out) and doesn't feel the need to provide for her children in any way. They go hungry. They are scavengers. Both parents turn a blind eye to sexual advances made towards at least 2 of the children by extended family members.

This was a good book, but it was maddening. I almost want to say the events seem so bad as to be unbelieveable, but both parents seemed realistically flawed (for use of the nicest phrase) enough to remind me of familiar characteristics driven to an extreme and making this book what it was. I had the hardest time coping with Rose Mary. Two of the kids found a diamond ring which they gave to their mother, excited because they thought this meant they'd have enough money to have food that week. Instead, Rose Mary kept it because she thought wearing it would, "help (her) self-esteem". I have a hard time understanding a mother who thinks her own self-esteem is more important than providing her children with a meal. I have a hard time understanding a mother who would rather have her children go hungry than go on welfare. She also was depicted in a scene hiding and eating a chocolate bar while her children went hungry. This made me twitchy throughout the book and I personally found it hard to understand how they could love such a person.

Both parents, in spite of everything, still come through as loving the children in their own (selfish and sometimes skewed) ways. The volatile relationship between Rex and Rose Mary serves as a very obvious picture of Rex's instability and Rose Mary's unrealistic optimism and narcissism. They're painted as intelligent, creative, almost bohemian characters who would have a lot to offer any children if they were mentally able to provide the essentials like food and shelter.

All of that said, Jeannette Walls didn't write this with a "woe is me" tone, which was impressive. The story wouldn't have been readable had she done that. It just stayed descriptive. Throughout her narrative, she managed to still come through loving her parents and being especially fond of her father. The thing I liked most about The Glass Castle was that her transition from innocent child who trusted her parents unconditionally to an intelligent teenager who saw how selfish her parents were and how dire their lives were was subtle. In some books, that kind of revelation takes place in one or a few pages page, which for me feels contrived.

I have a hard time rating this book for several reasons: my disapproval of the parents, the straight-forward writing style which in any other book might have felt lacking or overly-simplified, and the quick summation of things at the end. Overall, I'd say it's a good read if you want something that isn't challenging and will undoubtedly make you feel like you've had a decent life.
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08/07/07

Sondra Santos rated it:

Read in August, 2007

Somehow the narrator steps outside of her unusual and unimaginable life and speaks about her experiences as if she was referring to someone else. I had to keep reminding myself that this was a memoir and not a work of fiction and that these were situations that were not created but recalled, and with such vivid details.

There are four children in the Walls' family, all of whom turned out quite differently and whose experiences brought them to different places in their lives. Unfortuna...more Somehow the narrator steps outside of her unusual and unimaginable life and speaks about her experiences as if she was referring to someone else. I had to keep reminding myself that this was a memoir and not a work of fiction and that these were situations that were not created but recalled, and with such vivid details.

There are four children in the Walls' family, all of whom turned out quite differently and whose experiences brought them to different places in their lives. Unfortunately, we only get to hear the perspective of one of them here and it is quite unlikely that the other three grown children remember the events the same way.

Since I studied psychology in college, I was intrigued by the notion that despite their upbringing, these children, with the exception of one who we hear little about as an adult, turn out as normally functioning members of our society. Educated, too.

It is quite apparent after reading this story that one does not need money or a plethora of material things to "make it" in the world. In fact, perhaps quite the opposite is true. Would the Walls' children learn the lessons they did if it weren't for their parents showing them and teaching them (without trying) that hard work and responsibility bring you certain advantages in life? After all, these children had to scrounge for their own food and learned to survive without their parents and in fact, spent many days and nights, most likely, worrying about them and taking care of them, both physically and emotionally.

These children saw their neighbors and classmates in a much different light. While people looked to her with pity, Jeannette sees others much differently than they see themselves and is inspired and motivated by simply wanting more, wanting to have enough and not go hungry.

One could argue that these children were neglected and that it would've been better for them to be removed from their home as children and brought into houses with warm food, warm beds and warm and loving 'parents.' One could also argue that being taken away from the only home and the only family they know could've done more harm than good.

This is quite an interesting and thought-provoking book and one that will most likely become required reading as it focuses on survival and reveals how young people today no longer rely on their instincts. Their own survival skills are not tested since they are provided with every opportunity, and an overabundance of choices which could possibly take away the chances of their ability to "make it on their own" once they step into the real world.(less)

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11/03/08

Glenna rated it:

First of all, I made sure to tell my children that they were really lucky to have Tom and I for parents. Whatever our faults, they have it pretty good.

My mind is so full as I think about this book. It's hard to believe that adults could really think that way. Each parent did seem to have strengths that they shared with their children in the early years when circumstances weren't so bad. They were taught to value knowledge and the mother had a never ending way of looking at the "...more

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12/21/07

Paul rated it:

great memoir though i am a little suspect of this whole genre...there's clearly no way she can remember such vivid details from when she was five -- i'm sorry. but i still enjoyed it.

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10/27/08

Sienna H rated it:

Mrs Ebarvia
World Literature
10/21/08
The Glass Castle Book Review
The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls is a spectacular memoir. Jeanette Walls is a journalist and creative writer. She is one of four siblings and graduated from Barnard College. Her memoir, The Glass Castle, is being made into a movie. Her novel starts by explaining the typical ways of her poor family. She travels from place to place living in poor homes or in the family car. Her family finally en...more Mrs Ebarvia
World Literature
10/21/08
The Glass Castle Book Review
The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls is a spectacular memoir. Jeanette Walls is a journalist and creative writer. She is one of four siblings and graduated from Barnard College. Her memoir, The Glass Castle, is being made into a movie. Her novel starts by explaining the typical ways of her poor family. She travels from place to place living in poor homes or in the family car. Her family finally ends up in Welch, West Virginia where she starts to learn how hard life can be especially when she is considered the minority.
The novel was interesting because of the characterization of her family. Her family was very different from many that I consider normal today. Jeanette’s father is an extreme alcoholic that spends most of their income on alcohol and cigarettes. The way that Jeanette describes her father is one thing that made the novel hard to put down. Even though Jeanette’s father was an alcoholic, she still loves him and knows that he is very intelligent. Another thing that was interesting to me was the many different obstacles she has to deal with. For example, she had to learn to take care of herself and her siblings because her parents were too selfish and dysfunctional. Also, she has to work at an early age because her parents do not pay the rent for housing or buy food and clothing for themselves or their children. These things really caught my attention while reading the memoir.
To make the novel more interesting, Jeanette Walls should have shared her feelings more often. While reading the book, I wanted to know how she was feeling after some of her hardships. Jeanette does explain what happens and I can sometimes infer some of her feelings but I wish she would actually explain exactly how she felt about some situations. For example, her mother wouldn’t get a job because she was too wrapped in becoming an artist. I wanted to see how Jeanette feels about taking responsibility for her family and why she allows her mother do whatever she wanted. By adding Jeanette’s personal thoughts, it would help the reader to understand the novel better.
Regardless of its weaknesses, I really enjoyed the novel. The Glass Castle was well-written and interesting to read. Anyone who enjoys reading novels about different kinds of people would love to read this novel. It shows how hard life can be when people are viewed differently.
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