What readers think of The Glass Castle, plus links to write your own review.

As an avid reader, I always finish a book if I read past page 25. Unfortunately, I read past 25. This seem much like, Frey and Stephen Glass, great story tellers with great imaginations and the lack of integrity to pass off embellished work as non-fiction.

I'm only halfway through this book and can hardly imagine finishing it. The parents are reprehensible. The readers who describe these people as "eccentric" are jumping on some sort of sick bandwagon to justify their own inept parenting. There is no other explanation for ANYONE saying one kind or supportive word about the Walls parents. I find them to be delusional, selfish, irresponsible, abusive pigs. Anyone drowning himself in alcohol and visiting the whorehouse while his children eat butter for dinner needs to be put in jail. But then, you have the mother throwing money away on "art supplies" when she could actually be working........all while believing her 3-year-olds third degree burns were attained while learning a valuable lesson of self sufficiency. Good one. I hate this book.

This book is about a family which is really 'poor white trash'. They abuse their children, they steal, have really no ethical compass, and the worst part is that they do not have to be like that, unlike most poor white trash which does not have the intelligence or ability to do better, Yes, it is 'OK' to do 'your thing' - but it is NOT OK to then have children and subject them to the abuse that this family did to theirs.
CPS really did not do their job. The fact that the children did as well as they did is due only to circumstance, and to the fact that they were intellectually gifted. Each chapter is about another 'family problem' due to their own lack of 'drive' and it is really quite boring after a while.......

"Self-revelation without analysis or understanding becomes merely an embarrassment to both reader and writer." Quote from Judith Barrington.

I was hooked right from the start, but when I predicted what was about to happen in the U-haul part - that the door would fly open with a kid on it, I started to laugh. Either I am telepathic or something in the memoir wasn't right because I also wondered if we were going to have another shoot-out, and there was.

I stopped enjoying the book when I kept hearing myself say, "Really?" He has another car? He got away from the police again? They got into another school without papers? His family that took them in had enough food that night for all of them? Were they expecting them? She was resilient in one situation, but was a coward in another? The same goes for the mother? As the book went on, so did more questions. I had 100 pages left --I never finished reading it.

A memoir does not have to be exact in dates and/or conversations, but the events have to be real. I don't doubt that some were, but I too wondered about James Frey and the similarities...

I started it because it was my book club's choice. I stopped reading because a) I don't need to read about another dysfunctional family b) this has to be fiction and I don't like being duped c) there is a lot of good literature out there and this is not.

I can't decide if I am overjoyed that her parents were courageous enough to live their lives the way they wanted and raise their children accordingly or that her childhood is the perfect reason to allow abortion on demand. However, what may be more important is the social commentary on the homeless. There is excellent support for how society has placed the whole homeless "problem" out of context. Shouldn't we, those of us productive members of society who have jobs and have money to spend on frivolous books, agree that those who chose to live without any means of support to do so and encourage their life experience by eliminating any tax dollars that may be diverted their way so as to reduce the hardship they seek? The obvious answer is in the affirmative. From now on, I will go out of my way to spit upon those attempting to panhandle on street corners while I hang my $20,000 gold watch out the window of my Bentley. God Bless America.

As I read this book, a voice in the back of my head kept saying "James Frey, James Frey..."
Maybe I am just jaded by Frey's fiction-as-fact genre, but I simply cannot believe much of the story.
Has this been fact-checked? Did the publisher try to obtain the medical records from the "burn" story. Surely Jeannette would have made them available.
The vagabond lifestyle may well have existed in America then as now, but the lucid memories from such an early age amaze me. Her seven-year-old sister a proof reader for mom? Give me a break. This is grist for a child psychologist.
Even the geographic details seem to be in error. Places described as "twenty miles away" are perhaps a hundred or more miles apart on my maps.
If the story is in any way true, I presume that Jeanette lived longer in the "whine" country than the desert.
Sorry, I just can't buy the story. Even as I saw James Frey, Augustin Burroughs et al as free and easy with the truth while they concocted equally implausible tales, I will not be surprised when Jeannette Walls is "outed" as a fantasist.

This is to reply to B. Raisner's "quibble." Many children who are under extreme or traumatic circumstances at such an early age remember specific conversations-Just like excerpts, sort of....I mean, everyone remembers memorable moments in life, abuse as a child is VERY memorable and impacting. I think her experiences are very realistic and well-said.