The Glass Castle
Jeanette Walls
"My sister lent me The Glass Castle, by Jeanette Walls. I hadn't actually heard about it, and it was something that sat on my bookcase for a little while. And I was going on a trip, so I had to do something where I go and pick a couple of books, read the first few pages and see what's attractive to me, and the book grabbed me right away. The book is actually non-fiction. It's a memoir of Jeanette Wells' growing up and her incredibly non conformist parents, who have read just a very different book on parenting.
What I liked most about the book was just the incredible variety of experiences this woman had as a child, and it was incredibly challenging for her, and it was shocking, in terms of how incredibly bad her parents were as parents, and yet, it was interesting to see how she overcame the adversities that were thrown to her. It was sometimes unpleasant to read, because she went through so much awful stuff. You just become so frustrated with her experience and wonder when it'll ever end.
I was reminded of Running with Scissors, which is a book I started to read, but didn't finish, cuz it was so disturbing, that it just felt like an invasive experience to read Running with Scissors; whereas this book didn't feel so overly intimate that I had to turn away. I'm gonna give it four out of five, probably not five, because it wasn't so perfectly written. Yet it's really intriguing, and it was a page turner, and it's something I could recommend."
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