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| Plot Summary of Glass Castle |
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"When this autobiography opens, Jeannette Walls is all grown up, a successful writer who lives with her husband in a fancy apartment on Park Avenue in New York City. One night she's in a taxi on her way to a party when, looking out the window, she sights her mother, diving into a garbage can.
Walls and her two sisters and a brother had a hard childhood. This book mostly tells the story of their childhood.
When the children are very young, the family lives in the Southwest. They're constantly on the move from town to town, as their parents get fed up with what always see as the constraints of society or get in trouble with a landlord or the law. At one point, their mother, Rose Mary, does do some teaching. (What she always prefers to do is paint.) And their father, a wouldbe inventor, sometimes gets a job as an electrician. But he's an alcoholic who time after time will drink up his paycheck.
For a time, the family's happy, living in an old railroad depot in Batttle Mountain, Nevada, even though they don't have much and they go hungry from time to time. But when their parents really seem to start to fall apart, they move to the tiny decaying mining town of Welch, West Virginia. From this point, their poverty will be absolute. Many days all the children have to eat is school lunches. They're lucky to have a second dress to change into. After some time living with their incredibly abusive grandmother, the family moves into a shack which doesn't have running water or heat.
At times, I found this book incredibly hard to read, perhaps because my own family has sometimes been close to desperately poor. But in the long run I read the entire thing and have recommended it over and over again to other people. Jeannette and her brothers do in fact get themselves out of their terrible situation. Her big sister will be the first to escape their parents. Slowly, the rest of the children will also go to live with her. When Jeannette goes to live with Lori in New York City, she does so well in high school that she gets into Barnard College. "
Ann Gaines, Resident Scholar
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| Review Analysis of Glass Castle |
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Our unique search engine provides a wealth of detail about books by breaking them down into many different literary elements, all of which are searchable (click here).
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Kids growing up/acting up?
Yes
Kids:
- general coming of age story
Job/profession/poverty story
Yes
Kind of living:
- general poverty story
Period of greatest activity?
- 1950+
Subject of Biography
Gender
- Female
Profession/status:
- writer
Age:
- 40's-50's
Ethnicity
- White
Nationality
- American (!)
How sensitive is this person?
- sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor
- Strong but gentle sense of humor
Intelligence
- Smarter than most other people
Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings?
- 7 (a good amount)
United States
Yes
The US:
- Southeast
- West
Small town?
Yes
Small town people:
- dumb Rednecks, like Gomer Pyle
Century:
- 1960's-1970's
Style
Person
- mostly 1st
Accounts of torture and death?
- no torture/death
Book makes you feel?
- in awe
Is book humorous?
Yes
If humorous, kind of humor
- eccentric personalities
Sex in book?
Yes
What kind of sex:
- rape/molest (yeech!)
Commentary on society?
Yes
Commentary on
- selfishness
Writer's slant towards subject:
- favorable
Story of entire life, or part?
- story of set of events during life
Is this a biography of several people?
Yes
Autobiography?
Yes
Pictures/Illustrations?
- None
How much dialogue in bio?
- significantly more descript than dialog
How much of bio focuses on most famous period of life?
- 0-25% of book
How much is philosophy rather than life story?
- 0-25% of book
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Click here for more information about this book
Jeanette Walls Resident Scholar Profiles
TOP SCHOLAR:
 Ann Gaines
SCHOLARS:
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Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s). | |
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