Genre: Book
Grade: A-
Notable People: Jeanette Walls
Title: The Glass Castle
Review: Wow…Wow…Wow…this is a very painful book to read…took me a long time as had to read it in short segments. Walls tells her own obviously true story of growing up in the Arizona Desert and the coal mining country of West Virginia in her parents ‘voluntary abject poverty…with what may be the two most subtly neglectful parents I have encountered. Bright, capable….and 100% self-absorbed people, unable and unwilling to care for their four children. The book starts with a three-year-old Walls being badly burned cooking herself hot dogs on a gas stove, standing on a chair to reach…and gets progressively worse from there. I wanted to really beat these two people. If you choose to handle this, the book is exceptionally well written, and full of childhood resilience…..these kids are absolutely amazing….just needed some kind of parent…or maybe not.