Rating: 4 out of 5
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is a gripping, poignant memoir detailing her quirky childhood filled with incredible hardships on account of growing up in a dysfunctional family.
Walls grew up with an alcoholic father and an irresponsible and delusional mother. Rex and Rose Walls’ nonconformist ideas about the world initially inspired their four children. The Walls family led a peripatetic life, relocating every few months. They never imposed any rules on their children and encouraged them to handle their problems on their own. Rex was a charismatic man who taught them a variety of subjects and often played with them, while Rose painted and wrote and mouthed off philosophical thoughts.
However, as the children started growing up, their rose-tinted glasses were replaced by the harsh reality of life. Little by little, the Walls children’s dreams of the Glass Castle—the grandiose promises of a spectacular home to be constructed by their father—started crumbling when they realized their parents were self-absorbed people, averse to responsibilities, and they would have to take care of themselves. This realization instilled a fierce determination in them to get away from their parents and carve out a successful life for themselves.
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