This one is a Main Course type book because it is a memoir and sometimes hard to digest the experience the author has gone through.

Some would call the Walls family deadbeats, a societal scourge. They, themselves, believed they were free spirits, pioneers, conquerors of boundaries and lines drawn in the sand. A memoir The Glass Castle follows Rose Mary, a Texan Heiress, and her husband, Rex, an impoverished Vet, as they raise four children on the backs of ideas that are far from realistic. The kids are better for it; they’re taught. The kids aren’t constrained by material things; they’re told. But what is seen as learning self-efficiency and self-reliance is actually a study of survival under selfish parents who horribly neglect them.

All through the journey is Jeannette, the second eldest and author. The Glass Castle is the name of the house her father Rex, dreams of building his family one day. The house is unbuildable and transparent; the fact that Rex is unable to see this is his biggest flaw. It represents the idea of the American dream without the ability to structure it.

This book is bittersweet and takes an in-depth look at what binds a family as well as the social issue of poverty in the United States.

Approximately 288 pages, The Glass Castle is beautifully written and sweet without being saccharine and sappy. Though it is sometimes galling, and many times frightening, it is worth it. Read it, and then hug your family. Find it at Amazon.com, goodreads.com, Barnsandnobel.com

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