The Glass Castle Review

Title of the Book: The Glass Castle
Author: Jeannette Walls
Number of Pages: 288
Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Review:

Jeannette Walls begins her book with her first memory: catching her skirt on fire when she was three years old while making herself food.  That is her first memory and the reader

immediately begins to see her resilience.  Jeannette then takes the reader through the adventurous life of Jeannette Walls and her family.  Jeannette is the second oldest child of four. Her father is an alcoholic and her mother is an aspiring artist who doesn’t really want to have to be a mother.  The family runs from town to town when they get into trouble, so the children never stay in one place long and they don’t have much. They spend most of the time hungry and cold and dirty and people make fun of them.  As time goes on, they realize that their lives are not how it is supposed to be, so Jeannette’s sister sets off for New York. Over the years, all of the other children join her in New York, and finally their parents follow them there, too.  Their parents choose to be homeless, but the Walls children all find success and happiness.

The Glass Castle is a true story that seems almost unbelievable because of what the Walls children had to endure while growing up.  In the age where children have cell phones by the time they turn twelve, the story of Jeannette Walls will seem like it must be fiction.  To a teenager reading this story, it is hard to understand how they did not see how miserable their lives were until they got older. It is hard to understand how they could tolerate their lives and live through what they did, but then you realize that they didn’t have a choice and they ended up being successful.  The book is simultaneously funny and sad. At times I laughed out loud, and at other times I wanted to cry. By the end, I appreciated my life and my family more than I did before. I realized how much I take for granted.

At the end of the book, I had an unanswered question:  Why did Jeannette’s mother agree to live the life that she lived with her husband?  It is clear that Jeannette’s father was an alcoholic, so the family suffered due to his alcoholism and the instability that comes along with a father who is unstable and cannot hold down a job.  Jeannette’s mother, on the other hand, never touches drugs or alcohol. She has a college education and was raised in a stable home with enough food to eat. Why would she allow her children be so deprived?  Is she mentally ill? Is it something else?

Regardless of that unanswered question, the book is a wonderful read.  It is written in a style that is easy to read and understand. Jeannette Walls is able to paint vivid pictures through her writing so the reader can actually picture themselves there with the children.  Anyone who is a teenager or older would enjoy this book and appreciate all that the Walls children endured as children. Anyone who grew up in middle class America will appreciate where they came from after reading the life story of Jeannette Walls and her siblings.