The glass castle : a memoir

Title: The glass castle : a memoir

Author: Walls, Jeannette.

Publisher: Scribner

CIP The author, a contributer to MSNBC.com, recalls a bizarre childhood during which she and her siblings were constantly being moved from one bleak place to another by dysfunctional parents, and in which she and her siblings learned to prosper on their own.

Comments

For those of you that have read Dave Peltzer's books, I recommend this as well. It was my first book club book. I received it rather late, so I wasn't able to finish it before our meeting, but it was fascinating. The life that this woman lived growing up is something some people feel must be fiction.

It is parents like Mr. Peltzer and Ms. Walls that give us a chance to look our lives to realize how good we have it. Books like these need to be available so that we can learn about people. Not everyone has a great childhood, but that doesn't mean that they grow up to be worthless people. Ms. Walls comments on a time when she was on her way to a fancy party, and along the way passed her mother on the street digging through the garbage. She tried everything to help her mother, and she didn't really want it.

I know this is a common book with book clubs. It is well reviewed and well written. Parts are difficult to read, and I wanted to strangle the mother about every other page. Our histories are what make each of us different.