Thursday, April 01, 2010

The Glass Castle

The Glass Castle The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Fascinating. Revelatory. Nearly unbelievable. Truly stranger than fiction. Kind of horrifying, yet touching and loving. I ripped through this one, could hardly put it down - kept having to find out what happened next.

From my shallow, self-serving point of view, it made me feel fabulous about my own upbringing, which I don't always see that way, and also about my own parenting, which sometimes I need. But it lends perspective on more than that - prejudice, poverty, small towns, families, generations, and more.  (Not to mention addiction and mental illness!) I can only imagine the courage it took Ms. Walls to write her story, and the obvious impact her youth had on her to be able to remember and retell it so well. Bravo!

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hmmm...I really felt like I needed to go through therapy with her. I assume she had some to get to the point where she could forgive her parents, but in the book she only allows time to pass. I was not ready to get chummy with her parents again in NYC. But it was a quick read.

Just Katy said...

I really enjoyed The Glass Castle too. It was a great read. Half Broke Horses was interesting too but not quite as good as GC, probably because the experience was one removed and I thought it was the immediacy that really made Wall's story. But there's a delicious dramatic irony in seeing the characters headed for the next generation of the Glass Castle experience.

I also TOTALLY enjoyed the different perspective on parenting - made me feel like I should get a shining star for being so boring.

This comment probably makes no sense. Reuben felt the need to try to weigh in so my typing was done "under fire"

Nells-Bells said...

i have heard about this from a couple of sources and have really wanted to read it. i will just have to now! :)

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