The Glass Castle

What makes a good story? Many writers spend their entire careers answering it over and over, hoping each time to get it right. But what does it mean to tell your own personal story? What makes a non-fiction hard to put down? The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is the ideal book to answer these questions.

The first page of her story really paints a picture in your head on how her life must have been like, “I was sitting in a taxi, wondering if I had over dressed for the evening, when I looked out the window and saw my mom rooting through a dumpster… It had been months sense I laid eyes on Mom, and when she looked up, I was over come with panic that she’d see me and call out my name, and that someone on the way to the same party would spot us together…” From the get go, you already know she would rather people didn’t know who her parents are. This also paints a pretty good picture that if her parents were homeless now, how their lives could have been like when Jeannette was younger.

The title, The Glass Castle, gives a very good fairy tale dream that the kids always talked to their father about, and becomes relevant to the story because it is about how it felt growing up with a family that is constantly on the move, running from one town to the next. Jeannette and her three other siblings learned to take care of themselves at a very young age. Both parents rarely worked and when her mother began to teach she would attempt to hide her paychecks from her alcoholic husband by telling her kids to hide some of the cash somewhere, however, she would always give in to his habits and he would end up drinking it all away, leaving their four kids to occasionally scavenge for food themselves.

The tone is phenomenal. The way Walls tells her story is more like a matter of fact, not sugar coated, not unrealistic, but true. There are no unnecessary word play, or irrelevant situations. You feel as if you are in her head, going through all the situations she went through. Imagine your friend telling you about a remarkable event that took place. They kept you engaged in what they were telling you while going into great, but not too much, detail. That is exactly how this story was told.
Overall, The Glass Castle is a remarkable read. It has everything a good story needs: a great story line, an incredible style and tone, unforgettable characters, and gives almost an inside look at a lifestyle most people would over look and label as lazy. You would be a fool not to recommend this book to a friend, family member, or stranger.