THE GLASS CASTLE

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This was an amazing memoir that proves the 'rags to riches' fallacy can be true. Walls lived a hard life growing up. Moving round from place to place, not really having a fixed address, or living in a house that should have been condemned. Throughout her life Walls faces toil and trouble, ie. gets burnt at age 3 making hot dogs for herself and has to go through serious medical treatment involving skin grafts, has a drunk for a father, experiences rape and perverts, and yet she still makes the story an amazing tale with her being the heroin and getting a university deqree. The dysfunction in her family is what makes the story even harder to put down. Her father implants in the children's heads that they will one day live in a glass castle and life will be perfect. A perfect life in Walls early years was far from feasible. At some points she had to work multiple jobs, ie. babysitting, doing other students essays/projects, working at small jobs, just so that she would be able to fulfill the duties of a parent so that the rest of the kids in the family would have food to eat. Although Walls mum and dad were quite flake-y, they did try to instill good values within their children, like the importance of education, how reading and writing will help with your daily lives, how to be resourceful without being wasteful, at some point everything needs a little love. Some of the values were taken to the extent which was too much, like helping mum grade papers and fill out her lesson plans to keep her teaching job, eating all the food till it was gone even it was rotten. New York ended up being the promised land for Jeannette and her brother Brian, and sister Lori. Once they escaped their parents they were able to make decent lives for themselves and live the american dream. Out of all the kids, the 3 of them got to live the dream and do what they loved. It must have been devastating to watch the baby of the family, Maureen, go down the same road that her parents did but once she left for good, one has to imagine that her life got better or somewhat improved.

This book touched every part of me, had me laughing, had me wanting to cry, had me feeling sorry for certain characters that would not get out of their rut. It touched every emotion possible and made you realize what you are to be lucky for. This book is a memoir but not like any other memoir i have read. It had more of a KANE AND ABEL feel but for an entire family, or at least the 3 that made something of themselves. The difference between this book and KANE AND ABEL is that the mother and father chose to live a life of hard work and poverty. There were steps they could have taken and chose not to, things that could have helped them out. The most interesting thing about this book is that the struggle of the family was CHOSEN by the parents.



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