Personal Review Of The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls

For my independent novel project I read The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. This book is the story of the author’s life, living in extreme poverty all around the country. The book started off when she was 3 years old, telling her earliest memory of being on fire. From that moment on, the book never slows, talking about their constant moves all over California and Nevada, never having a big place or staying for too long. Their parents always kept life interesting; Their father, Rex, when sober, had big plans and even bigger dreams, all they needed was a little bit of money. Their mother, Rose Mary, was an artist at heart and never wanted kids and this was shown in the way she treated them, never having enough food and always blaming them for

They manage to find a way to feed and clothe themselves and stay warm together, always sticking up for one another, even with their parents seemingly doing everything in their willpower to stop them. Jeanette goes from the youngest writer on her school’s paper to a successful journalist in New York City, even going to Columbia University’s sister college (Columbia was an all boys school at the time) and graduating with a degree in journalism. They came from the worst circumstances, “He wrote back saying things in Welch were still going downhill. Dad was drunk all the time except when he was in jail; Mom had completely withdrawn into her own world; and Maureen was more or less living with the neighbors. The ceiling in the bedroom had collapsed, and Brian had moved his bed onto the porch. He made walls by nailing boards along the railings, but it leaked pretty badly out there, too, so he still slept under the inflatable raft.” (page 249) “When other girls came in and threw their lunch bags in the garbage pails, I’d go retrieve them. I couldn’t get over the way kids tossed out all this perfectly good food… there was, at times, more food than i could eat… i stuffed it into my purse to take home to Brian… I was pretty sure he was rooting through the trash, too, but we never talked about it.” (page 173) “‘Lori, what are you eating?’ ‘Margarine,’ she said. I wrinkled my nose. ‘Really?’ ‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘Mix it with sugar. Tastes just like frosting.’ I made some. It didn’t taste like frosting… but I ate it anyway. When Mom got home that evening, she looked in the refrigerator. ‘What happened to the stick of margarine?’ She asked. ‘We ate it,’ I said. Mom got angry… ‘It was the only thing to eat in the whole house,’ I said. Raising my voice, I added. ‘I was hungry.’” (page 68-69). They took this struggle and created