| The Glass Castle: A Memoir |  | Author: Jeannette Walls
Publisher: Scribner
List Price: $15.00
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Seller: internationalbooks
Rating:  1513 reviews
Sales Rank: 75
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Pages: 288
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.6
ISBN: 074324754X
Dewey Decimal Number: 362.82092
EAN: 9780743247542
ASIN: 074324754X
Publication Date: January 9, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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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
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 1513
 booksbytucker September 1, 2010
glewis
Unbelievable delivery time-Ordered August 28 Received by September 2-will use seller when available even if not the lowest price
A review of the negative reviews September 1, 2010
pyroclastes
First off, I want to admit that I have NOT finished the book yet, but if my overall opinion of it changes as I polish off the final sentences, I vow to come back and change my review accordingly.
That said, I think the book is wonderful. It's more than wonderful. Walls's story is heartbreaking and uplifting, frightening and life-affirming, oftentimes all in a single sentence. But what I have to say is less about my personal opinion of the book as it is about many of the negative reviews I've read, which largely focus on the incredible details of the story, "incredible" meant in it's traditional definition (as in they think Walls made them up).
Many seem to find her story too far-fetched to believe. I understand that for the average WASP raised in the suburbs, or hell, even your average Poor Joe raised on the "wrong side of the tracks," some of the aspects of this memoir are hard to swallow. But take it from someone who feels he has much in common with Walls: there is nothing impossible about what is found within these pages. I'm not saying I had it as hard as she did, but I see many parallels in our early lives, and by sheer statistical probabililty, I know there have to be people out there who've been brought up in similar but even worse conditions. Jeanette's story is a case in the extreme, but that isn't a very good arguement for it being a falsehood.
I can attest to the fact that a family unit truly can maintain itself (a better phrase would probably be survive) in such situations of destitution and despondency. I'm twenty-four years of age and can list at least as many residences. My father, who was a drug addict, had no job and did little to contribute to the raising of me and my brother. My mom left him when I was around four years old, and we continued to move from state to state, city to city for the remainder of my life in her care. While I can't say I went hungry as often or for as long as Walls did, I remember times when kethcup and crackers were all my mother had to offer us, and our body-weight would have probably sunk into dangerously low numbers had it not been for school lunches. Anyway, this isn't about me; I merely wanted to let it be known that the reason I believe the events in The Glass Castle to be true is not out of blind faith or gullibilty, but because I myself have experienced similar hardships, or have seen others do so with my own eyes. That being established, I wanted to address a few specific things people seemed to have a hard time believing...
One reviewer found it too unlikely that a three year old could cook her own food, referring to the book's opening passages. First of all, what Walls described herself doing there can only be called cooking by a very loose definition of the word. If the reviewer will recall, all she was doing was boiling hotdogs, and not very well I might add, seeing as how it ends in third-degree burns. If my three year old nephew can operate a DVD player (which he can), then I assure you that any relatively intelligent three year old can be taught to fill a pot with water, turn the nob to HIGH, and throw in a couple hot dogs.
The reviewer goes on to ask how a mother could allow such a young child to do so unmonitored, to which I respond, "You'd be surprised." I've seen with my own eyes examples of worse neglect. All you have to do is turn on the news to hear reports of mothers leaving their kids to fend for themselves for hours while they go downtown to turn a trick, or giving birth in a McDonald's bathroom toilet, or strapping them into cars that they intentionally let roll into rivers. Reading about someone letting a kid boil water is practically pedestrian in comparison, and therefor hardly incredible enough as grounds for calling a bluff.
One person who gave a single star review on the basis of the unbelievability of The Glass Castle cited a situation in which the father throws a cat out of the window of a moving car, followed later by a situation where he gives a speach on animal rights. This person calls it an inconsistency. The point he misses, I think, is that what Jeanette was trying to showcase here was her father's tendency toward being a hypocrite. Lack of behavioral consistency is not necessarily a writing flaw, as it is evident in ALL people to varying degrees.
I got the impression that some of the further "inconsistencies" he alluded to were the passages in which Jeanette spoke highly of her father's intelligence (engineering skills, mathematical prowess, nigh-comprehensive knowledge of astronomy and geology to name a few) compared with his financial irresponsibility and inability to hold down a job. I find this mildy offensive for one, but mostly just ignorant. Apparently, this person has never encountered someone of notable intelligence who simply never developed the social constructs in which their knowledge may thrive and better themselves. Let us not forget that the man was an alcoholic. A comparison I could make is to the idiot savant; someone born with incredible gifts in a certain subject, but otherwise undeveloped. These include people who can repeat complex musical compositions after one listen at age five, but never learn to tie their shoes. Men who, in their heads, can calculate pi thousands of digits in but still need the care and aid of their parents.
Yet another reviewer doesn't seem to have any patience for the author's way of writing in fully-fleshed out dialogue, i.e. word-for-word conversations. He somehow took them as lies. I don't think Walls intended to imply that she memorized every one of these conversations verbatim. It's for the sake of narrative that she fills in the blanks. As long as she stays true to the spirit of her memory and the personalities of the people involved, and indeed transcribes what she DOES remember as closely as possible, I see no reason to complain
But maybe I shouldn't be so bothered by these reviews. Maybe it's a GOOD thing that so many people find these things so unbelievable. It likely means that they've never encountered such meanness, hypocrisy, destitution, and plain ol' bad luck in their own lives. But I can't help but think that the ignorance of there being even a POSSIBILITY of these things must have some kind of negative effect on society. I think it leads to an overall lack of sympathy. Just remember people, not everyone is dealt the same hand. For every life of advantage, there is a life of disadvantage.
One more comment regarding a complaint, not only common for The Glass Castle, but seemingly all memoirs: That it is too author-centric, e.g. "Look at all the bad things that happened to me! Look what I did with my life!"
To that, I say, "Why the hell are you reading a memoir?"
Really, if you don't like someone going on and on about what happened in their life, stick to novels and more scholarly non-fiction.
As a final point on the matter, why would someone even write a memoir unless they had an unusual/exceptional life? Think about it. It's the INCREDIBLE lives that drive the people who lead them to write in down in the first place.
 Believe it or not! August 30, 2010
Emily Placido
by Emily Placido, author of Julita's Sands: A Memoir
This is the author's account of her childhood traveling from town to town with her dysfunctional parents. The story seems so unreal, like it has to be made up. But, as I read on I could believe the things that happned because I had seen worse. Besides, like they say, truth is stranger than fiction!
Walls writes with such compassion, many times I wanted her to let it all out and bash her parents. She doesn't. The author writes in a non biased manner without anger and resentment. Some of the living conditions that she experienced as a child would be considered child abuse today. Her mother is only that in the biological sense, and her father was a dreamer who defied authority and the norm. How Walls and her siblings made it through virtually unscathed is a wonder. This is an enjoyable read and I for one loved it. Once i started I couldn't put it down.
 Glass Castles August 26, 2010
S. Johnson (US)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Although a close friend who has similar tastes recommended this book to me, I absolutely hated it. It was just awful, and I felt like I did when I was reading "Angela's Ashes." I just kept waiting for some sort of redemption - something that would make me feel better for this poor kids - but it never came! I generally like to finish books I begin, but I believe this would have been better unfinished. I will never recommend this to anyone. Just awful.
a tad too much August 25, 2010
Thai Hien Ho
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I bought the book because it was only about six bucks from the friday outlet selection from amazon.
I got very excited when I saw the ratings - four and a half stars with like more than a thousand reviews!
I just started reading the book today. At first I didn't know what to expect because I knew nothing of the author and her life. I mean, that was the reason why I purchase the book - right?
Lets start out with the positives. The book is an easy read - literally. An elementary student can fully understand what Walls is trying to say. There are no difficult words nor messages behind the story. It is straight up facts - this and that happened.
As I read the story, I kept on thinking white trailer-trash. And this fascinated me, I never knew how they lived. The little knowledge I knew of the poor white class was from Hollywood, thus, I knew nothing.
I felt that the story was a little TOO much. How can a three year old be cooking? What type of mother would let her child cook at that age? How does she remember her first encounter with gum but not the pain from the fire - she was supposedly burnt!
The book is very contradictory. How can she give a piece of the hotdog to the dog if she was on a stool/chair (whatever it was) in order for her to cook. And how did the family make money? She says that they barely had money and when they did, the father would buy hard liquor. How is it that they can leave their trailers behind and travel to another location in their plymouth and find another trailer or rent a house?
It amazes me how this book has such great reviews. Nothing makes sense. Its like bits and pieces of information from her life - but everything just seems too much like a Hollywood drama. Its even more dramatic than Korean dramas! And that's saying ALOT (for those that watch the dramas like I do!)
DON'T buy the book! learn from my mistake. The book is emotionless... I feel as if the author is just trying say "poor me, poor me" and "look at what I did with my life".
Showing reviews 1-5 of 1513
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