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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 362.82092
EAN: 9780743247542
Edition: 1
ISBN: 074324754X
Label: Scribner
Manufacturer: Scribner
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 288
Publication Date: January 09, 2006
Publisher: Scribner
Studio: Scribner
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Product Description:
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Amazon.com Review:
Jeannette Walls's father always called her "Mountain Goat" and there's perhaps no more apt nickname for a girl who navigated a sheer and towering cliff of childhood both daily and stoically. In The Glass Castle, Walls chronicles her upbringing at the hands of eccentric, nomadic parents--Rose Mary, her frustrated-artist mother, and Rex, her brilliant, alcoholic father. To call the elder Walls's childrearing style laissez faire would be putting it mildly. As Rose Mary and Rex, motivated by whims and paranoia, uprooted their kids time and again, the youngsters (Walls, her brother and two sisters) were left largely to their own devices. But while Rex and Rose Mary firmly believed children learned best from their own mistakes, they themselves never seemed to do so, repeating the same disastrous patterns that eventually landed them on the streets. Walls describes in fascinating detail what it was to be a child in this family, from the embarrassing (wearing shoes held together with safety pins; using markers to color her skin in an effort to camouflage holes in her pants) to the horrific (being told, after a creepy uncle pleasured himself in close proximity, that sexual assault is a crime of perception; and being pimped by her father at a bar). Though Walls has well earned the right to complain, at no point does she play the victim. In fact, Walls' removed, nonjudgmental stance is initially startling, since many of the circumstances she describes could be categorized as abusive (and unquestioningly neglectful). But on the contrary, Walls respects her parents' knack for making hardships feel like adventures, and her love for them--despite their overwhelming self-absorption--resonates from cover to cover. --Brangien Davis
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
I read this book very quickly, it is a well composed, compelling story and is hard to put down. However, I found it emotionally flat, maybe even cold. It reminded me of the line so frequently heard on the old "Dragnet" TV series, "Just the facts mam, just the facts." Maybe it is because Ms. Walls is a reporter writing in the style of a reporter or maybe it is because she is still in denial to some extent. I also find, as another reviewer mentioned, that she is too protective of her parents, glossing over some really horrific behaviors by her father and boasting the fact that he was basically a pretty smart guy. She avoid the fact that he totally squandered a gifted intelligence. She also seemed to gloss over her mother's indifference and enabling of her father. She is entirely to forgiving of her parents, whether in fact she is so forgiving or it is just this presentation I cannot speculate.
I wish "The Glass Castle" had contained more emotional content, there is a whole hidden story that is not being shown. I also hope Ms. Walls is not so forgiving of her parents as she appears to be in this book. Nevertheless, I recommend this book to everybody, if you are a thinking caring person you cannot help but be drawn in to this memoir.
Rating:  -
Wow...
I love this book, am reading it now for the third time. Am buying this for all my friends and family that need a reality check this Christmas!
She writes like we are right there in her head with her reliving a nightmarish past with a positive attitude.
I do hope there will be a sequel and a movie!!
Rating: -
I could not put it down and am anxious to share it with friends. Am now reading Half Broke Horses with the same intensity. My father was also an alcoholic; but we did not lead the wandering lifestyle as depicted here; because my Mother was a very strong person and my father always held a job and provided for us, but I could tell stories that Jeannette never did. I found the children in this book to be more the victims of the mother than of the father. In some ways that was true in our case, also, but our mother protected us.
Rating:  -
I like the book. It was a well written compelling story. The author tells the story of her childhood and seems to glorify her parents horrific behavior (not providing food for kids, bringing them to toxic relatives, etc). I understand that most people would not want to read a book about someone being a victim and blaming their parents but this book seems to celebrate the parents being grossly inadequate. Somehow or another the author and the two older siblings grow up and manage to function in society. But the youngest sibling Maureen seems to take the blunt of the family's disfunction. I am sure if she were to write a memoir she would not be celebrating the parents this way.
Rating: -
Loved this memoir. I read it several years ago and was mesmerized from the first page to the last. Amazing that children survive this kind of childhood to become productive and whole individuals. Highly recommend this book!
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