The Glass Castle

Jeannette Walls 2005

Devastation Rating

Emotionally Ruined
poverty parents memoir survival

Our Take

Walls grew up with parents who called poverty adventure and neglect philosophy. Her memoir is not an indictment — that is what makes it devastating. She loved them. The glass castle her father always promised to build was never built. The ending, which is also a dinner party, is the most uncomfortable reconciliation in memoir.

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