I usually read thriller/mystery and SiFi genres, memoirs don't grab me as a rule . However, the other day I was browsing the discount book table at Mike's Merchandise, a local bargain store that sells just about everything when I found buried treasure!
The book was "THE GLASS CASTLE". This is definitely one of the best novels I have ever read. Right from the first line: "I was sitting in a taxi, wondering if I had overdressed for the evening, when I looked out the window and saw Mom rooting through a Dumpster", I was hooked.
Jeanette Walls, MSNBC gossip columnist, bravely bares her lifelong secret of growing up with her three siblings and having to eat butter for dinner (if she got any dinner at all), trying to make her own braces, constantly having to leave town in the middle of the night to escape arrest and bill collectors, and suffering the whims of her artistic, intelligent, and utterly selfish parents (a brilliant but alcoholic father and a delusional artist-wanta-be mother). The story unfolds from her childhood perspective, from cooking hot dogs at age three and catching on fire, to growing up faster than most of us can probably imagine having to ever do.
It's amazing that she ever lived to tell this wonderfully well written saga. The story is not, however, a "poor me" tale. Walls simply states the facts, but that's all it takes to keep your attention.
I couldn't put this book down. It'll make you laugh and cry at the same time but most of all it will make you appreciate your own life more than every. I highly recommend that you run to your local library and check this book this, but I warn you that you'll probably wind up staying up all night reading it. Jeanette Walls writes the way I only dream of doing.
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