Het glazen kasteel

Well written. It's the kind of book that reminds you no matter how bad you think you have it; someone is worse off. ( )

audiobooks of memoirs are my favorite thing. i love hearing stories straight from the source. Jeannette's family is unique to me, maybe not unique to a lot of people, but i do not know anybody personally who grew up with such interesting family dynamics and complicated familial love despite all the awful things that happened. i think this book would feel more complete if the author had written more personal insights rather than recounting things that happened. i would love to read more about her reflections of the events that happened, her emotions, and how she processes her feelings towards her family ( )

I read this book in two days, and only put it down on the first day since I had to get some sleep. Two take aways from the book: 1) I want to be more conscious of things I've come to take for granted (food, hot showers, a safe place to sleep at night); 2) there are others with dysfunctional families who are able to succeed in spite of their upbringing. Maybe it's common for the dysfunctional ones to blame those who are successful and hold them responsible for their situations, or try and suck them back into their dysfunction. But there's also survivor's guilt and that takes a toll, too. ( )

This book does not fit into the normal genre or category of what I read. I had a friend recommend this book to me and based off our conversation, I vowed to try it. And it was a hard read. Before I get into some of my thoughts and details, the book is a memoir of Jeannette's life. Her memories and experiences growing up. Her parents. And how all of it formed the person she is. As far as I know, Jeannette is not famous for anything other than this and her other books. Meaning, the book was much more about someone's life growing up than "look at how this person became famous". Going back to the book being a hard read, some of that was me but much of it was Jeannette's life. Her life was outright scary at times and borderline weird enough that I kept thinking it fit with my typical reading of horror and suspense. Fending for herself at 3-years-old while her parents were too busy with other stuff. How disconnected her parents were from the normal aspects of life felt like many horror stories I've read of disjointed and demented families. One of the hardest aspects to understand and internalize was how much the parents loved their kids but at the same time how disconnected they were from the kids. A combination of selfish and single focused mixed with a family connection. Having grown up in what I would consider a normal nearly-nuclear family, the family here was a loving chaos that was hard to understand but, thanks to good writing, easy to picture. As a book, I would recommend it for the different insights that it will provide. There was a movie adaption which I may track down and watch but which I may ignore. I'm not sure I want to spoil my mind's images from the book with what Hollywood wants to represent. I probably won't read Jeannette's other books but I am glad to have read this one. It's given me some insights that I wouldn't have had previously. ( )

Sucked me in, chewed me up and spit me out. Once I read past the prologue and got a couple of pages past the beginning of the first chapter, I couldn't put it down. I kept wanting to read aloud to people in a sort of "OMG! look at that train wreck" kind of way. Well written and fast moving. So many people have already reviewed this that I'll just say "yeah, you ought to read it." It won't change your life but it will sure make you appreciate what you have if your life is anywhere near approaching normal because Jeannette Walls' wasn't. ( )