Jeannettee Walls' The Glass Castle
People have been urging me to read this memoir for years, but since two people recommended it to me last week, I decided it was time to give it a go. It's the story of four children and their absolutely insane parents--alcoholic father, mother with some other issues. I HATED it. On every page, I hoped social services would come to give these children a real home. Their lives are astonishingly heartbreaking and awful, and I don't care that 3/4 of them turned out ok, no children should have to grow up like that. It's like when I read Running with Scissors and was aghast that people lived like that. Guess what, this is worse!! Children should always have food and a roof over their heads! I guess Walls is a good writer--she tells her family history with wry humor--but that doesn't make the facts more palatable. Also, I wondered what her siblings thought about her version of events. I'd be mad if one of my sibs wrote a book and mentioned multiple times that s/he was the favorite child. None of her sibs are fully realized people here, though her parents are (horrifyingly so). Seriously, this is why I rarely read non-fiction. It really depressed me.
4 comments:
OMG. This book drove me crazy, too. I ended up reading it all in one sitting just to get it over with. Those parents are such horrible people!
THANK YOU!! I felt so alone! Seriously, I'm afraid to tell my coworker that I read it b/c she LOVED it. I just don't get why. My grandmother recommended this to me, for goodness' sake! Ugh. Seriously, it is not that hard to get a job and provide food for your family.
I thought her parents made Augusten Burroughs' look like amateurs. They were seriously the worst parents ever.
(I didn't *not* like the book - but I probably also read it in one sitting just to get it over with!)
I also read it in one sitting just to get it over with . . . seriously, why do people love this book?
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