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The Glass Castle: A Memoir |  | Author: Jeannette Walls
Publisher: Scribner
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
Buy Used: $1.95
as of 9/10/2010 20:07 MDT details
You Save: $13.05 (87%)
New (99) Used (685) Collectible (4) from $1.95
Seller: bordeau_books
Rating:  1518 reviews
Sales Rank: 86
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Pages: 288
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.6
ISBN: 074324754X
Dewey Decimal Number: 362.82092
EAN: 9780743247542
ASIN: 074324754X
Publication Date: January 9, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| • | ISBN13: 9780743247542 | | • | Condition: USED - Very Good | | • | Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed |
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Product Description
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Amazon.com Review
Jeannette Walls's father always called her "Mountain Goat" and there's perhaps no more apt nickname for a girl who navigated a sheer and towering cliff of childhood both daily and stoically. In The Glass Castle, Walls chronicles her upbringing at the hands of eccentric, nomadic parents--Rose Mary, her frustrated-artist mother, and Rex, her brilliant, alcoholic father. To call the elder Walls's childrearing style laissez faire would be putting it mildly. As Rose Mary and Rex, motivated by whims and paranoia, uprooted their kids time and again, the youngsters (Walls, her brother and two sisters) were left largely to their own devices. But while Rex and Rose Mary firmly believed children learned best from their own mistakes, they themselves never seemed to do so, repeating the same disastrous patterns that eventually landed them on the streets. Walls describes in fascinating detail what it was to be a child in this family, from the embarrassing (wearing shoes held together with safety pins; using markers to color her skin in an effort to camouflage holes in her pants) to the horrific (being told, after a creepy uncle pleasured himself in close proximity, that sexual assault is a crime of perception; and being pimped by her father at a bar). Though Walls has well earned the right to complain, at no point does she play the victim. In fact, Walls' removed, nonjudgmental stance is initially startling, since many of the circumstances she describes could be categorized as abusive (and unquestioningly neglectful). But on the contrary, Walls respects her parents' knack for making hardships feel like adventures, and her love for them--despite their overwhelming self-absorption--resonates from cover to cover. --Brangien Davis
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 1518
 The fine art of complaining September 8, 2010
Fishie Stick
Juan J. Rodriguez
English
The Glass Castle
7/12/2010
A little girl wanders through the desert and gets bit by a rattle snake, she is found by her parents soon after. Her parents being the wise, responsible people they were decided that no one at the local hospital knew what the hell they were doing so they take their unconscious daughter to the only person qualified for the job...... a witch doctor.
Take that in for a second.... No the story is not about a witch doctor, its about a group of children growing up in what at first appeared to be an episode of the Twilight Zone. Right off the bat, right at the beginning of the book you can tell something is not right, like as soon as you meet the characters within the book you can tell a cataclysm of sorts has happened. That's because the people in this book are Rednecks/Hippies the impossible hybrid, and one of them wrote a book about her life story.
Her name is Jeannette Walls and I'm not quite sure when she was born or where since the book was pretty vague about her origins and her family kept moving around a lot... and I guess it makes her story more relatable if you're not separated by a generational divide. In her book The Glass Castle she describes her life, but mostly her childhood as a vagrant hippie child and the people who influenced her to be the person she is today. At first her family seemed like an insane lot but as time went on it turned out on her parents and her youngest sister were the crazy ones. She lived her entire life wandering the west side of the us with her dad, her mom, her sisters Lori, and Maurine, and her brother Brian, and the only times she went east was towards the end of the book.
Through out the book Jeannette's life was dictated by the kind of crazy her parents were feeling like at the time. Her Mom was an artistic depressive who would shut herself off to the reality of her life only to come out every once in a while to realize what she'd become, and her dad was a deceptive drunk who abused his wife on a regular basis. Although Jeannette loved her mom the person who had the biggest impact on her life was her dad, he served as a constant reminder to her about the kind of person you should be and the kind of person you should never be. He was a double edged sword who died in his mid fifties due to forty years of nonstop chain smoking. But he wasn't a bad man he raised his kids to be near geniuses and did his best to provide when he wasn't completely wasted. Every time something messed up happened he would say "Have I ever let you down?" the answer would always be yes.
My favorite story wasn't an actual chapter in the book it was more of a reference within the book. I'm talking about the witch doctor bit, where Lori gets bit by a rattle snake and her parents take her to a witch doctor instead of the hospital. It was an early taste of how crazy her parents really where and my favorite one. I say its my favorite because after 200+ pages of complaining the outlandish bits tend to be the more interesting parts of the book. At first I had this pegged as a sad redneck story because it began with Jeannette boiling hotdogs in a trailer park but as soon it skipped to a side story about Lori getting bit and I heard them mention "witch doctor" I began to try and figure out what kind of crazy these people where. What you could learn here is how far determination can take you, considering how nice the kids have it by the end of the book.
I wish I could connect to this book somehow but I'm not sure I could complain for that long without being punched in the face. The closest thing I can think of is when I saw the movie Mongol, when you look at it seems normal because it's a movie but when you think about it it's a movie about when the stuff that happened in this book was merely a small annoyance . its Basically a rough overview of Genghis Khan's life and how hardcore and completely miserable it was until he became Khan. Or have you ever watched Thumbelina? Its about this girl the size of a thumb that is basically being raped by bugs, and rats, and toads throughout the movie, and by the end they defeat winter by getting married and singing. I know it's a kids movie but its some of the most disturbing imagery I've ever seen. But that's what I like about fairytales, they're ridiculous and they never have to include something that is plausible or can be explained by science.
There are a couple questions I would like to ask the author, things that just weren't explained properly in the book.
1. Ok, near the end of the book we find out Jeannette's mom turned out to be sitting on a million dollars worth of land and who knows how many thousands in antique Indian jewelry whatever became of those things and why did her mom not use them earlier to help them not live like total bums?
2. Rosie (Jeannette's mom) was the most audible complainer in the house, and she was always going on how she needed to be taken care of, well she was sitting on tons of money WHY DID SHE NOT USE IT?! That has been my main question and its been bugging me forever.
3. Was Rex Walls really in the Air Force or was he just a compulsive liar?
4. What comic books did Lori end up illustrating for?
 The Glass Castle September 7, 2010
diversity book group
I absolutely loved this book and had a hard time putting it down. I think the Walls children did a great job of getting out of their very tough childhood situation. Jeannette Walls was very successful in describing her childhood. I also loved reading her other book about her grandmother.
 Foul September 6, 2010
Flika (Colorado)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
The easy read and quick humor sucked me in. But the extremely foul language and immoral scenes painted in my mind pulled me out. I could not finish the book.
 Too much graffiti September 6, 2010
shellkellzoe
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Was quite surprised that it came totally marked up by someone with some words even obscured in the copy. Delivery was fast but even though a second hand book, I've never gotten one through Amazon that looked so bad.
Wow! September 6, 2010
Marc Axelrod (Potter, Wi USA)
This book is engrossing and exhilarating. It's hard to believe that anyone could have parents like the ones described here in this book. From the very first page, you will be mesmerized by this compelling narrative. Jeannette Walls tells the unbelievable story of her life and family, and how some of her siblings overcame incredible trials and tribulations to become responsible citizens of the world. The book is fabulous and should be read by everyone for inspiration and encouragement.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 1518
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