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The Glass Castle: A Memoir Paperback – January 9, 2006

by Jeannette Walls (Author)
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Product Details

  • Paperback
  • Publisher: Scribner Book Company (January 9, 2006)
  • ASIN: B0086KGHWG
  • Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3,924 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,099 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
5 star
2,907
4 star
635
3 star
199
2 star
78
1 star
105
See all 3,924 customer reviews
In The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls tells the story of her amazing life.
jeanne-scott
An incredible story - it's amazing that Ms. Walls could survive to tell it.
New Yorker
You will laugh, cry, and get really, really angry while reading this book.
H. Alan Rosenberg

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1,243 of 1,289 people found the following review helpful
True to Life Account
By beckybramer on November 13, 2005
Format: Hardcover
I grew up in Welch, WV and was acquainted with Jeanette and Brian(Lori was older and Maureen was younger). I can attest that her harrowing account of growing up with an alcoholic father and mentally ill mother in the coalfields of WV was as she says. This was a compelling read, all the more so, because it was about people and places I knew so well. As I read, I was filled with sorrow and shame because I was one of those people who didn't want to have close association with them because they were so different from me. I try to asuage my guilt by telling myself I saw things from a child's maturity level. I wish I could apologize and find myself wondering what would have happened if I had befriended Jeanette. She could have enriched my like tremendously. For those of you who doubt things could not have happened like it was written, don't. I knew it and I saw it, and to a degree, lived it. And as tragic as it was, it was true.
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888 of 946 people found the following review helpful
WHAT A COURAGEOUS MEMOIR - - BRAVO!
By andy behrman on February 27, 2005
Format: Hardcover
First, "The Glass Castle" is a real page turner - - I couldn't put it down and finished it in about four hours - - a record for me!

It's probably the most thoughtful and sensitive memoir I can ever remember reading - - told with such grace, kindness and fabulous sense of humor.

It's probably the best account ever written of a dysfunctional family -- and it must have taken Walls so much courage to put pen to paper and recount the details of her rather bizarre childhood - - which although it's like none other and is so dramatic - - any reader will relate to it. Readers will find bits and pieces of their own parents in Rex and Rose Mary Walls.

Her journey across the country, ending up in a poor mining town in West Virginia and then finally in New York City, is a fascinating tale of survival.

Her zest for life, even when eating margarine and sugar and bundled in a cardboard box with sweaters, coats and huddling with her pets, is unbelievably beautiful - - and motivating.

If I could give a book ten stars, it would be "The Glass Castle."
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451 of 493 people found the following review helpful
Inferno to Paradiso (or close enough)
By Thomas M. Seay on December 14, 2005
Format: Hardcover
Jeannette Wall's trek, as depicted in "Glass Castle", recalls Dante's

journey through Hell and eventual ascenscion to Paradise. The comparison may seem risibly over-dramatic, but just as Dante had to go through the experience of the Netherworlds before he could be led to Heaven, so, too, is Jeannette's eventual triumph the FRUIT of a childhood filled with poverty and, what some would call, parental neglect or even abuse.

In the opening section about Jeannette's early childhood, sort of the outer rungs of hell, we are introduced to the author's quirky family. Her father, Rex, is a brainy underachiever who cannot keep a job and has a bit of a "drinking situation".

The mother is an eccentric artist who cannot be bothered too much

by mundane tasks- you know, like cooking or cleaning the house. The children, all extremely bright, are often underfed and left to fend for themselves. However, if the parents have failings, they also have redeeming qualities. The children are immersed in an environment that values art, music, intellectual pursuits, freedom and self-sufficiency and spurns racism and all forms of bourgeois superficiality. Above all, the reader never doubts that Rex and his wife truly love the children. One gets the feeling throughout that Jeanette never doubts that either.

In any case, the early years are bittersweet. If there is squalor and hunger there is also humor and magic. Most of all, there is hope. The family frequently moves and, although that is frustrating, it also provided the background for a myth: that the next town would provide prosperity.

But then to Welch they did go!Read more ›
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111 of 120 people found the following review helpful
One for Your Reading List.
By Yours Truly VINE VOICE on November 27, 2006
Format: Paperback
I was grateful that the chapters are short in this disturbing memoir, because I could only take in a little at a time. It's difficult to imagine a more dysfunctional household than the one in which Walls grew up. What sets her book apart is the distinctive voice in which she narrates that dysfunction, and her growing awareness that she's entitled to a decent life.

We meet the fiesty Jeannette as a toddler, badly burned while cooking hot dogs on a stove for herself. No, she wasn't defying her mother's orders. She was simply taking care of herself in a household where both parents thumbed their noses at such simple conventions as regular meals, sound shelter, decent clothing, running hot water and protection from sexual predators. On one thing, though, they didn't scrimp: the children were taught to read at an early age. I'm convinced that held the key to their survival. Thanks to public libraries, Jeannette read the entire Laura Ingalls Wilder prairie series before she entered school. It must have helped normalize the survivalist lifestyle that her parents adopted.

The difference is that it wasn't necessary. Rex, her father, was when sober an accomplished electrician and science maven. Her mother, Rose Mary, had a college degree but found teaching, like motherhood, an imposition on her life as an artist. The three older children--Lori, Jeannette and Bryan--functioned as a family within the family. The youngest, Maureen, grew dependent on the kindess of strangers and eventually set out on her own.

This is a uniquely American story that wanders all over the landscape from California and Arizona to West Virginia and New York.Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

Wonderful read. Couldn't put it down

Wonderful read. Couldn't put it down!

Published 1 day ago by Melinda J Goff
Four Stars

Great book makes you thankful for your life

Published 1 day ago by boop
Five Stars

Even dysfunctional families can love and care for each other.

Published 1 day ago by Sally Fowler
Great read.

Awesome book.

Published 1 day ago by Kellie
Sad and interesting

Well written. Kept me interested in a disturbing way. True dysfunctional family. Shows Jeannette as a smart and very strong person. We love our family no matter what.

Published 1 day ago by Marilyn Brimmer
Excellent book. Would have loved it even if it ...

Excellent book. Would have loved it even if it were not a true story, and it's truly incredible that it actually is. Very good writing and an amazing life story. Read more

Published 2 days ago by Sharon Ramon
Five Stars

This is probably one of my all-time favorite books.

Published 3 days ago by Sally
Worth the read

This was good and hard to put down. So hard to believe in the United states we have small kids hungry. Sad!

Published 4 days ago by Debrah
This beautifully written memoir brings the reader straight into the...

This beautifully written memoir brings the reader straight into the life of this memorable family. A story that can only be told by someone who lived it. Read more

Published 4 days ago by Amazon Customer
I loved reading her account of living in a way that ...

I loved reading her account of living in a way that I cannot even pretend to comprehend. I also found myself wondering how the first chapter could possibly have happened given the... Read more

Published 4 days ago by Deborah Williams-Martin

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