The Glass Castle is a memoir by Jeanette Walls where she details her unpredictable childhood, traveling with her non-conformist, often shiftless parents. Her mother is a somewhat manic-depressive artist and writer who doesn't believe in getting a job because it would stifle her creative spirit. Her father talks like a physics savant, but his alcoholism and his paranoia of FBI/Mafia/Gestapo/Unions make it hard for him to make his dreams and entrepreneurial visions a reality. Jeannette's early childhood is spent moving from town to town in the Southwestern deserts. Her dad works odd jobs when he isn't working on a method for striking gold. When she is in fifth grade, her family moves to Welch, West Virginia, her father's childhood home. There the Walls children struggle to adjust to life in the dying coalmining town.

Everyone. I have recommended this book to everyone I know, even people who aren't big readers. I think the story and the easy-to-read prose give it universal appeal. I set the product content rating at 18+ because of the alcoholism and occassional reference to sex, but I was only going along with the Writing.com guidance. I believe most high school students could handle this book.

You literally can't put this book down. It's like reading a train wreck - you can't look away. I spent two days of my life completely absorbed by the ups and downs of a lifestyle dominated by poverty and the father's alcoholism. The fact that these things happened (and still happen) to children is kinda scary for me. Walls does not often indulge in long passages describing every detail, which is perhaps another reason it's a fast read. The events are presented just-the-facts newspaper style in snips and pieces. Her style is very well-suited for the story she tells.

Surprised. A lot of people recommended this to me, but I resisted for a long time. I am not fond of weepy memoirs, so I did not expect to like this book. But I was pleasantly surprised. This book tugged on all sorts of emotional heartstrings, but not because it was melodramatic. It is an unapologetic presentation of the facts, and those speak for themselves without a lot of flowery details or self-pitying passages. Another surprise was how I could still relate to parts of it. Even though we may not all have childhoods as hard as this, most can still understand the apprehension about fitting in at school or the excitement over moving out of your parent's home.

Jeannette Walls is a journalist, and you can tell from her style of writing. No one could ever fault her book for being over-written.

I am very sensitive to the plight of children, so I don't like to read about them dealing with hardship. But I think it's good for me (and others) to read and remember these sort of things. It's too easy to forget.

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Created Apr 04, 2007 at 7:24pm • Submit your own review...