Het glazen kasteel

This is a charming and heartbreaking book, a story of family love in all its different dimensions. Read for Psych first year seminar, and damn, there's a lot of repression and reappraisal in this one. ( )

Simran Ajwani (pour novembre)-

Le Château de Verre est un livre sur une fille qui s'appelle Jeanette. Sa famille est un peu dysfonctionnelle, parce que son père est alcoolique et sa mère ne travaille pas. Sa famille ne vit jamais au même endroit pour longtemps parce qu'ils est toujours courent. Il y a beaucoup de problèmes sociaux dans le livre, mais Jeanette raconte l'histoire avec humour. Finalement à la fin, elle travaille dur et vit à New York sans sa famille.

Kanay Chotalia -
J'ai aimé le château de verre. C'était un type de livre très différent. C'était bien parce que Jeannette parlait de sa vie. Elle a traversé des luttes au sujet de sa vie. Ses parents étaient également très méchants avec elle. ( )

Her parents are endless interesting people. I kept asking myself how two parents could be this way which the author was trying to figure out as she and her sibling realize that no one lived as they did. I could not put this book down. ( )

For some reason, I love stories that deal with dysfunctional families. Rich, poor, doesn't matter, I love them. Maybe because I sort of have one? I dunno. This is a story of a poor family. The father is exciting, charming, charismatic, outgoing, funny, and lovable, but he is a drunk. And not so fun while drunk and drinks away all of the families money, and gets into crazy fights with his wife while drunk, etc. etc. The mother is a free spirit, she wants to be an artist, doesn't want to be a mother, and really, doesn't want to work to make money for her family.

This story is told by the second eldest daughter, Jeanette, her sister Lori is 3 years older than her, her brother Brian is one year younger, and her sister Maureen is 5 years younger. These kids deal with a lot. Homelessness, almost always being hungry and having to pick through trash to get food, no indoor plumbing, constantly on the move (for the first few years of their lives) and their insane parents. And somehow, they come out of all of it okay.

I was very surprised that I had more sympathy for the father, than the mother. Despite his alcoholism, he was a funny, charming, lovable guy who genuinely cared for his children. He at least seemed to try to get food and keep them safe. When sober anyway. And I know people with alcoholism, my own father being one, and my aunt so I know that it truly is a disease that you have to work very hard to fight. The mother however I could not bring myself to care very much for. All she did was complain, say her life was not fair, not get out of bed and go to work (she had a teaching degree and the kids had to make her lesson plans and drag her out of bed in the morning), she just wanted to paint and be left alone. She ate sweets while the kids went hungry, she could have left her husband, her daughter even asks her too at one point saying that as much as they loved him, they couldn't live starving, dirty and poor like this anymore. She didn't seem to care about her children's well being and I just could not bring myself to have much sympathy.

This is a very well written memoir. It reads very much like a novel and holds your attention. Jeanette had every reason in the world to complain and whine about her life and she doesn't, not once. She is very smart, learned a lot, and despite hardships seemed to have a lot of fun more than once. This is a story I won't forget:) ( )

The Glass Castle is a memoir that explores uneasy upbringings and explores topics such as mental illness, abuse, social climbing, and growing up. The book's tragic, but the real story will help students gain a new perspective on the hardships of others and will have them rooting for Jeannette. I would most definitely have a project assigned to this book due to the extensive use of this book in other classes and the resources available ( )