Oh, Jeannette Walls. How you ever turned out to have a normal adult life I shall never know. Your childhood was ridiculous - unbelievable really. Your memoir, The Glass Castle, made my neck sore from constantly shaking my head in shock. You know that day when Children's Aid showed up at your door? Had I been you, I would have jumped for joy, would have begged to be put in a foster home. But not you. Oh no, you did not want to leave your family. I still cannot comprehend why.

You are lucky that the scar you received at age three when you caught on fire cooking hotdogs is the only permanent physical mark on your body. Between rolling out of your moving family car, sleeping in cardboard boxes, living in houses infested with giant rats, and never having enough to eat, one would think that you would not have lived to see adulthood. But you did. You managed to get away from your psychotic parents and make a life for yourself. Congratulations.

You may not be much of a writer, Ms. Walls - do you have any emotions? I certainly did not detect any - but you have a story that halts the reader in her tracks. Every few pages I wanted to turn to someone and say, "can you believe this?" In fact, my students who are reading your memoir do just that. For this, I am eternally grateful to you. Your story caused non-readers, kids who do not enjoy school, to ask, no, beg, to spend an entire period reading. Do you know how rare that is? Trust me, it is rare.

You never seem to regret your upbringing, and I do find this troubling. Do you really think you benefitted from your parents' unconventional methods? Maybe a person can get used to anything, if it is all they ever know. Or maybe you just held back in your writing, worried you would wound your family. Lucky for the reader, while you skimped on the emotions, you never withheld the facts. We see for ourselves the horrors you experienced, and we can condemn, even if you cannot.

So, Ms. Walls, I find myself with mixed feelings regarding your memoir. On the one hand, it is a great teaching tool. But on the other, I am not thrilled with your emotional distance, or the message that you seem to be sending. The very fact that you were never taken away from your parents is a failure of justice. Yes, you survived, but at what cost to yourself? By the end of The Glass Castle, I was still shaking my head - not at your parents, but at you. Yes, family is important, but at some point you need to ask yourself: is your family a source of love, or a source of pain? ( )

When I read the back cover of this book I realized that it was not a book I would normally be interested in reading but I had heard good things about it from others so gave it a try and am glad I did. I love her writing style and the way she can tell a story with such grace - it's a book that makes you laugh and cry and sometimes at the same time - very highly recommended! ( )

A great book and excellent read! ( )

A beautifully written and moving memoir about a girl raised by parents more concerned with their own freedom and dreams than the needs of their children. This author truly has lived a life full of hardship and she has created a successful life for herself by taking her past and living beyond it. Sometimes I would think that the parents were not too bad until they settled in Welch, NC. Very moving and thought provoking. I still am in awe of the many neglects they faced as children. ( )

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is a shocking and heartbreaking memoir of growing up with an alcoholic father and mentally ill mother. Over and over, I was stunned and even angered by the so-called adults complete and total lack of parenting skills. At one point, Jeannette, who was 7 or 8 at the time, wakes up to find a strange man touching her beneath her covers, and when she tells her parents maybe they should shut and locked the doors at night so as to keep the creeps out, they tell her some crap about fresh air and not letting fear get the better of you. In her teens, when Jeannette tells her mom that her uncle has been inappropriate with her, her mother tells her he’s just lonely and that “sexual assault is a crime of perception.” Time and again, these two genetic donors (calling them parents is going too far, to be honest), show a complete lack of common sense and sheer laziness to step up to the plate. I am amazed that the kids lived to adulthood, let alone to be anything close as successful as they nationally syndicated columnist and regular contributor to MSNBC. Brian and Lori also made good despite their upbringing.

One thing I can say about reading this book is that I can say with 100% certainty that I’m not that bad as a parent. It’s done a lot to make me feel better as a parent… at least I shut the doors at night and feed my kids and make sure they bathe regularly. I make sure they’re fed before I feed myself and I’d damn sure have food in the fridge AND pantry before gnawing on a Hershey bar. I feel guilty if I decide not to share my candy bar.. or Lindt truffle balls, nom nom nom… but that’s because they’ve ate plenty and had dessert, and By GOD, this is ONE thing I kept for myself. And I feel guilty for THAT! I can’t imagine the utter self-centeredness, truly clinical narcissism, the mother wallowed in. Also, I can say with certainty to my kids that they’ve never gone hungry. They may not like what’s in the cabinets, but there IS food… it’s just not ready-made junk for them to snack on.

I read a few reviews of The Glass Castle, and one reader dinged the book because the author conveys such neglect and abuse in a very unemotional manner. How could anyone suffer such a life without feeling a sense of indignity and injustice? To this I must point out that Walls is a professional journalist, and relaying information in an objective, matter-of-fact way is part of the job, so I wasn’t surprised by that at all. Also, I think it’s a normal part of the coping skills of an abuse survivor to learn to be able to talk about it with some distance and disconnection.

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is a great story of resilience and survival.

Click for full review: http://thekoolaidmom.wordpress.com/20... ( )