The Glass Castle

The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls

Product Description:
304 pages
Simon & Schuster (Jan. 2006)
Personal Copy

Borders Synopsis: The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant. When sober, Jeannette's brilliant and charismatic father captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who abhorred the idea of domesticity and didn't want the responsibility of raising a family.

The Walls children learned to take care of themselves. They fed, clothed, and protected one another, and eventually found their way to New York. Their parents followed them, choosing to be homeless even as their children prospered.

My thoughts: Never have I enjoyed a book so much, but wanted it to be over so quickly. I was awed by the Walls children, I experienced hate and a lack of understanding for their parents and I cringed so frequently because the book was not a very creative story, but it was real. The strength that Jeannette and her siblings showed was heroic and I was so very happy to reach the end, to know that the children turned out for the better, despite all of the many ways that the cards had been stacked against them. The Glass Castle was everything that the reviews suggested that it would be.

Your turn: Have you read The Glass Castle yet? Did it spark any emotions for you?