Jeannette Walls had a far from easy childhood. Her first memory is of catching her dress on fire while cooking hot dogs in the family's trailer. She was just three years old. Her parents took her to the hospital, but her father checked her out "Rex Walls style" (secretly) before she was ready to come home.
Things did not go any more smoothly from there. Her family moved from one town to another, always careful to avoid tax collectors and other officials who could put Rex and Rosemary (her mother) in jail or take their kids away from them. Jeannette was raped and nearly shot while living in one small town and bullied for most of her childhood, due to her family's poverty, her physical appearance and, on a few occasions, for doing well at school.
Her biggest supporters throughout her childhood were her siblings: Lori, Brian and Maureen. However, Lori and Brian also went through their own shares of bullying, and Maureen, although more sheltered by friends, was not immune to the problems her siblings went to at school and at home. Their father was an alcoholic who couldn't keep a stable job for more than a few months. He would sometimes exhibit violence towards their mother, an artist who dedicated more time to her artwork than to her children. She struggled to be a successful artist but refused to use her teaching degree to put food on the table. The logic she used was along the lines of: "Why spend an hour making a meal that will be gone in minutes, when I can make a painting that will last forever?"
However, in spite of all her struggles, Jeannette was able to triumph, both career-wise and in character. For example, while living in Welch, West Virginia, she was able to make friends with a girl who once bullied her by helping her little brother escape from danger and, subsequently, aiding the former bully in schoolwork. Jeannette also helped her sister Lori escape to New York, but was never one to avoid helping around the house. She created a family budget while her mother was away working in order to help properly feed her family, and even tried to make their run-down house in Welch look nicer by painting it. But once she left that life behind, her success only continued to grow as she graduated with honors from college and became a successful writer.
All in all, it's a fantastic book that deserves to be read over and over again. If you ever feel like there are obstacles in your life that can't be surpassed, that your circumstances are blocking you from a brighter future, or you are simply looking for a source of inspiration, then you should read this book. You'll be grateful that you did.
Also check out my other blog: cjustuswriterintro.blogspot.com
The Glass Castle Review by Courtney Justus is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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