false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165613865m/7445.jpg 7445 30 Jeannette Walls's father always called her "Mountain Goat" and there's perhaps no more apt nickname for a girl who navigated a sheer and towering cliff of childhood both daily and stoically. In <I>The Glass Castle</I>, 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). Though Walls has well earned the right to complain, at no point does she play the victim. In fact, Walls' removed, nonjudgmental stance is initially startling, since many of the circumstances she describes could be categorized as abusive (and unquestioningly neglectful). But on the contrary, Walls respects her parents' knack for making hardships feel like adventures, and her love for them--despite their overwhelming self-absorption--resonates from cover to cover. <I>--Brangien Davis</I> 2944133 book 2005 The Glass Castle: A Memoir total:62543|5:24543|4:25181|3:10110|2:2073|1:636| 62543 258551 81419 12715 2 41 false false Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Fri Jun 22 07:49:07 -0700 2007 Fri Jun 22 07:49:12 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 37 false true Tue May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon Jan 21 14:00:13 -0800 2008 Mon Jan 21 14:02:37 -0800 2008
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 intim...more...]]> 4 29 false false Thu May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu May 08 07:06:25 -0700 2008 Sun Nov 16 11:33:51 -0800 2008 more...]]> 2 23 false false Sat Apr 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Wed Jun 25 18:22:50 -0700 2008 Wed Jun 25 18:26:24 -0700 2008
"The Glass Castle" is most definitely a page-turner. Without question, the consistently sho...more...]]> 5 24 false false Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Thu Nov 15 05:57:17 -0800 2007 Wed Nov 21 06:13:48 -0800 2007 more...]]> 5 19 false false Fri Jan 11 22:45:23 -0800 2008 Sat Jan 12 00:05:50 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 16 false false Sat Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2006 Tue May 29 16:40:00 -0700 2007 Tue May 29 16:44:56 -0700 2007 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 ...more...]]> 4 12 false false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Wed May 23 06:04:21 -0700 2007 Fri Aug 31 19:27:38 -0700 2007
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...more...]]> 2 8 false false Mon Sep 17 06:27:46 -0700 2007 Wed Sep 19 20:16:00 -0700 2007
It's not that I hated The Glass Castle, it's just that it irritated me with its self-con...more...]]> 4 8 false false Sat Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue Jul 08 07:18:47 -0700 2008 Tue Jul 08 07:18:47 -0700 2008 more...]]> 2 7 false false Thu Mar 06 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Feb 27 14:05:08 -0800 2008 Thu Mar 06 14:13:19 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 8 false false Thu Jan 31 14:56:37 -0800 2008 Thu Jan 31 15:05:50 -0800 2008
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 duri...more...]]> 4 7 false false Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Jan 05 04:41:32 -0800 2008 Tue Apr 01 06:26:54 -0700 2008
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 thi...more...]]> 5 7 false false Fri Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Wed Jun 20 13:03:36 -0700 2007 Tue Jun 26 06:22:21 -0700 2007
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 engross...more...]]> 5 5 false false Sat Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sat Mar 29 13:04:24 -0700 2008 Sat Mar 29 13:05:33 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 5 false false Sat Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sat Mar 15 21:47:49 -0700 2008 Thu Mar 20 11:20:20 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 8 false false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Aug 07 17:33:37 -0700 2007 Thu Sep 13 02:55:21 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 6 false false Mon Nov 03 19:17:25 -0800 2008 Sun Jan 04 11:44:19 -0800 2009
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 ...more...]]> 4 5 false false Fri Dec 21 19:51:44 -0800 2007 Fri Dec 21 19:52:29 -0800 2007 4 5 false false Mon Oct 27 13:10:35 -0700 2008 Mon Oct 27 13:10:35 -0700 2008 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 ...more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=7445