The Glass Castle

Amanda chose  The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls for our July book club.  And I loved it - though it got some mixed reviews.  At least one person wasn't able to even finish it because it bothered her so much.  Which is completely understandable.  It is the story of Jeannette Walls' childhood - growing up with 2 sisters and 1 brother in very unusual and often terrible ways because her parents are extremely selfish and irresponsible people.  Or at least that was our consensus.  Between her mother's selfishness and laziness and her father's drunkenness and inability to hold a job - it is a miracle that she turned out so well!  The book starts when Jeannette is about 3 years old in the west, to avoid paying their debts they move from place to place mostly in the desert, doing the old 'skedaddle' as her dad calls it.  Then when she's in her early teens they settle down in West Virginia -you think the desert is bad, wait till you read about West Virginia!  And finally ending in New York and up to the present.

The narration and flow of the book is so engaging that nearly every time I was consumed with horror at their lives, she would explain something new or tell some story and I found myself laughing out loud.  But be warned, there is a lot of craziness in this book.  The way they have to live because of the faults of their parents is astonishing to me.  And throughout book club we all kept saying, "oh yeah the most terrible thing was," and "I can't believe I forgot to mention this other terrible part," etc, etc, all night.  But despite my constant use of the word terrible - the book is wonderful and amazing and ultimately inspiring, just the situations are terrible.  I am just so impressed by Walls' ability to be so objective about her own life and how she literally rose above it without bitterness and hatred.   I was also personally inspired because I have been feeling particularly poor lately, and let me tell you after reading this there is no way I will ever feel poor again!

But most interesting to me was the contrast of reading this book and The Diary of Anne Frank so close together and having them go through such similar experiences as far as what they ate and how they lived (often in filth, going to the bathroom in buckets, etc), but with the Frank's it was thrust upon them by a tyrant and a war, whereas the Walls lived that way by choice.  At least by the choices of the parents anyway.  Like I said terrible... I just wanted to slap her parents across the face while I was reading this book!

The Diary of a Young Girl

So as I mentioned before I somehow made it to 35 having never read The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.  In high school I only had to read excerpts, and because I knew it would be sad I just never read it on my own.  So I decided now was the time and took the plunge.  And I am so glad I did.  Anne is sweet, endearing, and pretty funny.  I think I laughed more than I cried.  And lets face it, we all know how it's going to end so it takes the sting off it a little bit.  It's still exceptionally frustrating that they were caught so close to the end of it all though.  Now to mention that most of them died within days of their camp being liberated.  Aargh!  So frustrating!  That being said, I don't know if her diary would've had the same impact had she survived... not sure about that one though, something to think about.  All in all reading her diary really made me want to do more research into the lives of her father Otto (since he's the only family member who survived) as well as the two women who helped them - Bep Voskuigl, who lived until 1983 and Miep Gies, who lived until 2010.  (Can you believe she lived until 2010?)

So I read the definitive edition, which included passages that had never been published before and supposedly included her entire diary.  Having never read the other versions, I have no comparison - but I found her to be an average teenage girl full of angst and love and constantly trying to become the woman she wants to be.  Of course she was very much not the average teenager given her life and the things she had to go through - but at the same time she really was.  Which is probably one of the reasons everyone loves her so much.  I found myself relating to her in a lot of ways - and could really remember feeling similar when I was 14 and 15 years old.  Of course my life was easy by comparison - but the basic emotions of growing up and wanting to be independent, but still being so dependent at the same time were things I could really remember experiencing.  Anyway, if you like me had never read this book, all I have to say is go do it - now.  Very poignant and somewhat voyeuristic to be honest - but wonderful and definitely a must read.  Now I want to go reread a bunch of required reading from school...