The Glass Castle: A Memoir
by Jeannette Walls
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jeannette WallsEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Published)
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2006-01-09
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Scribner
Book Reviews of The Glass Castle: A Memoir
Book Review: Made me mad...
Summary: 1 Stars
...and I see it made others mad also. I really feel "mad" is a strong thing to say because I have compassion for the author. My underlying sense is that she was not being straight with me. Especially where it concerned her parents. The existential question of how she cared for her parents really bugged me. I've seen her in interviews volley the ball on this subject and I've come up with nothing. Yes, it must cause personal shame, no matter what they say, to allow one's parents to linger in homelessness. They want to take care of themselves, yet one can argue that they don't know what is best for them.
I thought the opening line to this book was one of the best I'd read. Yet throughout the book I found little of the author's personal struggle to come to terms with what she served me in that line. The question of how she would make her life different hangs out there unanswered. If the problem is that having homeless parents is such a grand embarassment (as it obviously is to her)...where is she confronting this in herself? She touts it as a lifestyle choice for her parents and that they are too proud to accept anything else. Yet, many of their comments led me to assume otherwise. Where are the author's feelings deeply explored in those emotional areas she may consider embarassing? More often than not, they are given a "romantic," sort of Grapes-of-Wrath-cast. As a reader, I want to know what it feels like to come to a city like New York from Appalachia.
The whole middle of the book felt extremely long and lacked a certain freshness of experiences. OK, I get that walls were falling down and there was nothing to eat...but the description often felt so general to me, I felt I'd seen it in a movie somewhere.
Very odd book, I thought.
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