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Book Review of The Glass Castle

The Glass Castle
The Glass Castle
Author: Jeannette Walls
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Book Type: Paperback
reviewed on


I'm not sure why there was so much hype about this book or why the waiting list to get a copy was so long. (It had to have featured on Oprah or something!) Yes, the author had an unconventional upbringing full of addiction, mental health issues, poverty, and poor choices. But if you work with children these days, you come to realize that there really isn't any such thing as a conventional upbringing anymore.

I was confused by her purprose for writing this book. At times she seems to be just presenting the facts in a nonjugemental hey-this-was-my-life tone, but suddenly she'll switch into victim mode where she seems to want sympathy. She even gets a little defensive about her parents in a don't-you-dare-judge-me kind of way. I think she wrote this book in lieu of therapy; but, if you ask me, she still needs therapy.