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The Glass Castle: A Memoir | 
 enlarge | Author: Jeannette Walls
Publisher: Scribner
Category: Book
Buy Used: $33.32
Used (4) from $33.32
Rating:  1069 reviews
Sales Rank: 3152810
Format: Import
Media: Paperback
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.3 x 1.1
ISBN: 1844080536
EAN: 9781844080533
ASIN: 1844080536
Publication Date: 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com
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
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1064 more reviews...
 A Must Read July 17, 2008
S. Gutierrez (Moorpark, CA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is one of the best stories I have ever read. Amazing. Inspiring. Tragic. Comic. Heartwarming.
 Disturbing but also Entertaining July 16, 2008
S. Bourget (Southern Maine, USA)
Every memoir is only one side of the story - the author's. Jeannette Walls life was a challenge to say the least. Clearly both parents had emotional issues. Poverty was a large part of her youth and there were varying levels of abuse - emotional, pyschological, neglect.
But with every memoir I always take it with a grain of salt. As sensational as some moments in her memoir were, I was question their accuracy.
If nothing else, even if only 1/2 of her novel is true, Jeannette has overcome a horrifying childhood. By the end, it doesn't sound like she has emotionally moved beyond what happened to her, but she does go on with her life.
I can't say I would whole heartedly recommend this. Most of it is like any other heart breaking memoir about a sad childhood, absent/abusive parents, and overcoming it all.
 I don't see it... July 16, 2008
K. Johnson (Rhode Island)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I read this book for my book club, and I do not understand why it is so popular. I find the writing style to be elementary and fragmented. I have no connections with anyone mentioned in the novel, including the author. Overall, it was a disappointing read. Shocking and heart wrenching, but a far cry from literature.
great July 15, 2008
justine (canada)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
this book was really good, and either so well told or so different from my own experience that it's hard to beleive as truth... but i got it in the biography section of the bookstore and it does say memoir right on the front, so i guess it must be so.
i really enjoyed the author's writing style. i read a bit of the introduction and bought it, she's a good storyteller. it's like she paints a coat of glaring reality.. or some such thing that makes the story so palpable, over the plot (which is fascinating enough on its own.
i thought this book did a great job of outlining the positives and negatives about people and situations. the parents were very interesting. they were learned people, more so than the average joe, and they taught their kids so many things and really stimulated them intellectually. they were inventive and artistic and let their kids be who they wanted to be and discover the world at their own pace. however, they were far from perfect. the mother had a very laiser faire attitude about raising the kids, though this could just be my personal bias as i was raised in a more stuctured household. when the kids are struggling with problems or when something isn't going right, she doesn't get too involved in their lives and either focuses on herself or brushes whatever it is off telling them to be stronger. so while her artistic hairbrainedness is wonderful and fun, it also backfires a bit. and i also didn't enjoy her relationship with her husband who lorded over her.
the husband was interesting because he was such a creative, inventive guy. when he put his mind to something he got a solution to whatever it was that fixed the problem (though to be fair kids can be easily pleased, especially without any prior world views to taint the perspectives their parents throw at them) and he was so intelligent and cared so much for his kids, but he was a drunk and used his intelligence poorly in inappropriate settings and he was somewhat pigheaded. also, despite this intelligence he and his family coast along the bottom half of the economic scale.
i think they were both wonderful characters and would have loved to meet them in real life. i love their view on the world, if not so much the negative exectutions, and think they're both really metaphorical characters and really display how something can have both a good and bad side well. i think the mother says at one point -life has both tragedy and comedy, you should focus more on the comedy than the tragedy- or something like that. there's a good and bad to everything... though at some point this philosophy could lead to intentional blindness to certain aspects of a situation.
Utterly Engaging! July 14, 2008
Zeek (Lancaster, PA USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
A memoir that reads like a novel, this story deserves it's time on the best seller lists. I read this one on vacation and was totally absorbed the entire time reading it.
The story begins with an adult Jeannette spying her mother rummaging through the trash on the streets of NYC. Ashamed of her parents' homelessness and more ashamed of her reaction to them- the rest of The Glass Castle sensitively details her life with engaging tales of all she endured while growing up with all too fallible parents.
Born to an alcoholic father and flighty, artistic mother, Jeannette never seemed able to lay down roots- mostly because her eccentric parents couldn't hold down jobs. From living in the desert to a series of places no more than hovels, the Walls often found themselves doing the "skeedadle", as her father put it, to beat the bill collectors. They also had little time to receive a "proper" education, much to Jeannette's dismay.
Although her parents were definitely flawed, each had a brilliance all their own which they imparted to their children. Partly because of this, but more likely because of their own determination, Jeannette and her siblings managed to become productive, and for three of them, successful members of society.
The Glass Castle, a reference to her father's pipe dream of one day building a glass castle for his family to live in, is an insightful tale of a young girl who navigates the land mines her parents seemingly blithely place before her to grow up to be a surprisingly unencumbered woman who takes charge of her life in ways her parents never could.
A real page turner and an easy read that will stay with you long after you read it!
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