The Glass Castle

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls was absolutely fantastic. It's so well written and so surprising that it's hard to think it's a true story. It goes through ups and downs that can make you laugh and cry and change your mood about the characters constantly.

In the story, the Walls family (consisting of Rex, Rose Mary, Brian, Rex, Lori, Jeannette, and Maureen) don't have a lot of money. They travel from place to place and their father tries to do odd jobs or make money off gambling most of the time. They do what they can to keep going. When the kids are younger, they think it's wonderful, always being on the move and going on adventures. However, when they get older they start realizing just how different their lives are from a lot of the other kids. They begin digging out of trashcans for food and collecting the little money they can. Jeanette herself goes through some pretty horrible things, but she still loves her parents despite the condition of their lives. Her and her siblings go through this together. I think that's one of the reasons I liked this book. It shows a broken but still together family that loves each other, and it's beautiful.

Rex is the father. He is a gambler, smoker, and drinker. He tries to be the head of the family, but a lot of times he just drags them down, spending all their newfound money on his cigarettes and beer.

Rose Mary is the mother. She is an aspiring artist who can't drive very well at all. She sometimes acts like one of the kids, and doesn't always like taking responsibility.

Lori is the oldest child. She is incredibly smart, responsible, and she is also an aspiring artist like her mother.

Then there's Jeannette. The book is from her point of view (obviously, since she wrote the book) and she's brave and she had been through a LOT. She's the only who who would believe in her father even when he was at his worst. As she grew older, her faith in him faded bit by bit, but I think she was always kind of her daddy's little girl.

Brian is the next oldest. He and Jeannette were probably the closest out of any of the siblings. They would always play together and such.

Maureen is the youngest. Jeannette didn't talk a whole lot about her, as when they moved to Welch, she always stayed over at friend's house.

They were always trying to build their Glass Castle, or their dream house basically. Their father had all the blueprints drawn out and everything.

There are so many little details in this book that are hard to explain, and so many things happened to her. There's a lot going on in the story because it was her real life! So I'm not going to list all the events that happened. You just need to read it and know that it is AMAZING. :)