The Glass Castle

An intense but wonderful book.

Wow! I don't know what to say about this book. I don't want to judge the choices Jeanette's fairly educated parents made in life – I was just happy to read about how she and her siblings persevered and made it through the other side fairly intact. Jeanette and her siblings were forced to grow up fast way too young. What these kids did to pull themselves out of poverty is beyond words –I'm not sure I could've done what they did had I been in their position. But no matter how the parents are perceived by the reader, one will note that they made it so that the family would remain a family no matter what, and for that, I do admire them.

I don't know what to say about this book. Sometimes I really enjoyed reading it and other times I felt ambivalent toward it. The family's craziness makes for a compelling read most of the time and it works even better because the reader knows it's all true. I think I may have missed the point of this book about how family should stick together because I kept wanting to shout at the kids, “Get out and leave your crazy parents behind!” There's not a lot to like about the parents in this story, which may be part of the reason I'm not over the moon about it as many people are. I really need to care about the characters and most of the time in this case I just didn't.

A well-written memoir and a story worth telling. I struggled to enjoy the book as much as I felt it deserved, especially for the first 100 pages or so, where I wished Walls had constructed the book more as a novel and less as a memoir (although it certainly is closer to a novel than most memoirs).

I really enjoyed this book. The parents made me so angry, yet they were such interesting characters.

I was late in coming to this book, but I'm glad I read it. The people are memorable and it is hard to believe that this truly happened in the US within the last century. Amazing story, well written, and an easy read.

Interesting how I reacted o this book... After the first 10-15% of the book, I was ready to abandon it. I found it tedious, repeating the same concept again and again with just different words and different examples. I powered through the slog mostly out of curiosity, given the great reviews and finally got to the good part. The tone of the author is perfect, judgement is restrained and there's no self indulgence, and that made the read in the end quite compelling. Probably, as a fiction, it would be a 3 stars, but as a memoir. I think it brings something important in an elegant way, so it gets an extra star from me.