The Glass Castle
Jeanette Walls
number of voters: 9
percentage of voters who finished the book: 100
highest rating: 9.7
lowest rating: 7.5
average rating: 8.189
percentage of readers who used the words “really liked” or “loved” to describe what they thought of this book: 100
*****
Imagine a car wreck on the freeway. Traffic slows, heads turn, eyes gape. And then on we drive. A moment later, it is forgotten.
Here, in The Glass Castle, a little girl reveals all the gory details behind that wreck. Her innocent voice is the one we hear as she describes the way people in her family collide with one another, a mass of crumpled hopes, fears, and expectations. The collision is her childhood; the mangled ruins, her life; the burning wreckage, her. This is the story of Jeannette Walls.
The story goes something like this: Four kids grow up in poverty and neglect with their brilliant, alcoholic father who loves them emphatically and their artistic, emotionally unstable mother who believes what does not kill them will make them stronger. The makings of a car wreck, indeed.
And yet—miraculously perhaps—they all walk away intact. There are scars, of course. There always are. But you would never know from looking at them that they had lived through such adversity. You wonder how anyone could possibly even survive it.
In this way, The Glass Castle is inspiring where it could have been depressing, full of promise when it could have been only tragic. And now we know what it is not just to gawk in passing, but to look—really, closely look—at disaster. There are atrocities, but there is also resiliency.
Read this book. It is a difficult tale, beautifully told; surprisingly humorous; moving and unforgettable.
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