It's been a while since I had a blog post under the "book category"... looks to be more than a couple of months. Well, a combination of regular TV and the Olympics pretty much broke my reading momentum for much of February. At that time I was reading a pretty good book, Kate Atkinson's Case Histories, but after I few weeks off by the time I got back to it I was really just reading words to finish it having lost the rhythm of the story. It deserved better than that.
A couple of weeks ago I made a concerted effort to get back on the reading bandwagon. I started easy with a throwaway thriller-type novel Daniel Silva's A Death in Vienna. I read one of Silva's novels last year on vacation and enjoyed it... and to be fair, it is a higher standard compared to some other authors that I have read in the genre.
However, the slam dunk back into reading game... Jeanette Walls' The Glass Castle ... and truly unbelieveable memoir of growing up in what has to be one of the most dysfunctional families ever to be put down in print. I would love to see what other people look like when they are reading this book. I imagine, like myself, their jaws must constantly need to be replaced in their upright and locked position!
I have JD (and family!) for this find... who stumbled on it when it was being passed around way back in November. This kind of "you've got to read this"/hot-potato game is in my opinion the highest endorsement for a book. So I stuck that in my memory bank... but thanks to my always lengthy "to be read" list plus plain 'ole procrastination I just got around to it ... and, conveniently enough, the book just came out in trade paperback!
Anyhow, it is a remarkable and compelling book. I think I read it in less than 10 sittings over a period of 4 days or so, which is super quick for me. Walls tells her tale in pretty short chapters, so I found myself very much victim to "oh just one more" everytime I sat down with the book.
The way in which Walls describes her upbringing (and I use that term very loosely!) you would almost think it was an average American "normal" childhood. Walls rarely (if ever) lays blame on her parents.. although it is heart-breaking when Jeanette and her three other siblings, express disappointment in their parent's behavior. This book is truly a testament to "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" -- the Walls children, for the most part, are certainly proof of that ... with the author now a contributor to MSNBC as well as a writer for several well-known publications.
In this post-Frey era, let this book restore your faith in the memoir genre! During that mess, Walls was pretty vocal that Frey should not be on the proverbial bad apple to spoil the bunch (so I am sure she's not too thrilled that her book is paired with Frey's on Amazon!).
So a highly recommended read. A true page-turner... infuriating at times, but ultimately inspiring.
