The Glass Castle
Ratings215
Average rating4.2
15
Ratings215
Average rating4.2
The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant. When sober, Jeannette's brilliant and charismatic father captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who abhorred the idea of domesticity and didn't want the responsibility of raising a family.
The Walls children learned to take care of themselves. They fed, clothed, and protected one another, and eventually found their way to New York. Their parents followed them, choosing to be homeless even as their children prospered.
The Glass Castle is truly astonishing -- a memoir permeated by the intense love of a peculiar but loyal family.
Featured Prompt
2,708 booksWhen you think back on every book you've ever read, what are some of your favorites? These can be from any time of your life – books that resonated with you as a kid, ones that shaped your personal...
Reviews with the most likes.
OMG - this is a memoir, and it is a hair-raising tale. How the children in her family survived, we will never figure out.
I shied away from reading this book since it's been published—not entirely sure why. I suppose the synopsis of Walls' memoir never appealed to me. I decided to pick it up for the College Students Spring/Summer Challenge, and ended up loving it.
Walls has an incredible sense of captivity in her writing. As a reader, I felt entertained, worried, sad, and empowered by her siblings and her struggles at various points in the book.
This book was at times difficult to read but always moving. I laughed and cried and found myself thinking about my own childhood with frequency. I had heard so many great things about the book and it lived up to every expectation and then some. If you have experience with an addict, this book might be hard to get through, but there are so many glimmers of hope and optimism to be found.
Made me rethink what my life is like and my privileges.
