Wow. I mean, WOW! This is so incredibly painful it has to be true. One of the few memoirs that has really gotten to me. After I read it, I passed it on to my parents, both of whom read it as well. They were shocked and awed by it as well.
Wells' detail is amazing, and the way she describes the events is so upclose and real that you read it and feel her pain. She draws you in that much!
Given how tragic and upsetting much of it was, it was a positive read over all. The idea that people can overcome terrible events and survive and thrive is heartening. Great, great book! ( )

Not sure I can add more to the myriad of reviews, but just wanted to say that I resisted reading this for a long time because I tend to put off depressing reads. It is surprisingly not depressing -- though it will make you very angry in places -- and well worth the reminder of how people can be resilient. ( )

The Class Castle is Jeannette Walls' memoir of growing up, with three siblings and in a state of extreme poverty and neglect, with her alcoholic father and mentally unbalanced mother. She tells the story directly and with a great deal of detail, covering about twenty years from her early memories as a three-year-old through her early adulthood, when she separated from her parents and established her own life on solid footing.

I feel compelled to interject with a comment that really isn't part of the review at all but, after reading lots of other readers' reviews, is something I feel I have to say in defense of Jeannette Walls: some of us really DO remember that much of our childhoods, even down to finite details of what we were wearing and what people said. I don't doubt her credibility for a moment. Traumatic events have a way of burning events indelibly into one's memory.

With that said, I agree with what others have noted as a disturbing lack of emotional response in many of the episodes described in the book. A review on the back cover of the book hails Walls for writing "brilliantly, without an ounce of self-pity." While I am envious of her ability to reflect so pragmatically on the difficulties of her childhood and her particular success in overcoming them, in the context of this book the lack of emotion she expresses deprives the story of a sense of purpose. Without some expression of pathos, it's unclear what we as readers are intended to learn from this. By the end, the story has become more a journalistic venture than the sort of memoir to which most of us are accustomed.

Nevertheless, her clear, crisp prose and the completeness of her details move the narrative powerfully forward, and the story is such a spectacular one that it is difficult to put the book down. Even without any specific resolution, the story is sufficiently interesting on its own to offer a compelling read. (Of course, I have to wonder whether much of the intrigue stems from the train-wreck-like nature of her home life growing up, instead of from the story she tries to tell.)

I picked up this book because I saw someone reading it on the subway a few days ago, and saw a few days later that Walls has a new book out. If the writing style in her new book is at all similar to the style of this one, I think it's definitely worth reading. She's a skilled writer, and certainly has much worth saying.

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! ( )