Cannonball Read 11

Sticking it to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Time to watch the movie

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

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The Glass Castle (2005) by Jeannette Walls has been on my radar for about ten years, but I never quite got around to reading it. My book club chose it as their next read, which was finally the motivation I needed. The Glass Castle is Jeannette Walls’ memoir of her childhood with her very difficult parents: Rex and Rose Mary Walls. Her father was a smart, gifted, difficult, truculent, alcoholic. Her mother was artistic, addicted to excitement, and probably had some mental health issues. Jeannette grew up with her older sister Lori, younger brother Brian, and her youngest sister Maureen. When she […]

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4/14/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:17 |

Because this is not a house for the faint of heart

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

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CBR BINGO: Farenheit 451 While I was fishing around trying to find a banned or controversial book for this review, I stumbled across several articles written in 2016 about a 15-year-old girl in a school district near me. When Jeannette Walls’ memoir, “Glass Castle” was removed from the 9th grade reading list at her school, this young woman was having none of it. She challenged her school district at a board meeting and very succinctly pointed out that the material that the parents were objecting to was regarding the treatment of  kids younger than the 9th graders who were being prevented […]

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9/19/2018 's CBR10 Review No:48 |

“A True-Life Novel”

Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls

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This is undoubtedly one of the best memoirs I’ve ever read. And I have read a lot of memoirs! It helps that Jeannette Walls is incredibly talented, as I already knew from having read The Glass Castle and The Silver Star. But her subject here is really what makes this book stand apart from so many others. “You can’t prepare for everything life’s going to throw at you. And you can’t avoid danger. It’s there. The world is a dangerous place, and if you sit around wringing your hands about it, you’ll out on all the adventure.” Walls wrote Half […]

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3/7/2017 's CBR9 Review No:46 |

Quick, and Fun, Like Riding a Bike (Not a Bronco)

Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls

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Half Broke Horses is a “true-life” novel, meaning that Walls took all the stories she had heard and collected about her grandmother and wove them into a narrative, smoothing them into place in a coherent timeline. Since the novel is written in the first person, she admits to assuming her grandmother’s thoughts and exact words, and it’s probably best to just treat the whole thing as probable fiction – beyond that, though, many of the stories kind of defy belief! From learning to fly a plane during the Depression to occasionally threatening a nefarious character with a pearl-handled revolver, Lily […]

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1/10/2017 's CBR9 Review No:2 |

A Glass Castle is a Perfect Metaphor

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

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I typically write my reviews in a timely fashion. In fact, I typically have a rule that I can’t start my next book until I write my review. It keeps me honest, up to date and together (because I always want to start the next book).  Well, rules went out the window after reading this book.  I have no idea what it is about it, but I was altered by The Glass Castle.  I didn’t want to write about it, I didn’t want to stop thinking about it…I basically just reread it three times in a row.  This is a weird occurrence […]

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5/25/2016 's CBR8 Review No:31 |

the Glass Castle is Half Empty

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

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“It’s really not that hard to put food on the table if that’s what you decide to do.” I started to read Jeannette Walls the Glass Castle a couple months ago but had to put it down due to some scenes involving animal neglect. I finally got around to picking it back up and I’m glad I did. The Glass Castle is a hard read (not just because they abandon animals they pick up but can’t care for) but it’s thoroughly engrossing. Jeannette’s father, Rex, was an alcoholic dreamer who always had a plan; unfortunately he was usually too drunk […]

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5/12/2016 's CBR8 Review No:42 |

“What I do know is that wondering why you survived don’t help you survive.”

The Silver Star by Jeannette Walls

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I read Jeannette Walls’s excellent memoir, The Glass Castle, a couple months ago. I can see where she borrowed from her (frankly, insane) childhood in The Silver Star, but this novel falls a bit short of her nonfiction. Set in the 1970s, The Silver Star is narrated by 12 year old Bean, whose mother has abandoned her and Bean’s 15 year old sister Liz in order to pursue her dreams of stardom (the mother seems to suffer greatly from something like manic depression). After a few weeks of eating pot pies and trying to earn a little money, Bean and Liz hop a bus to […]

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4/11/2016 's CBR8 Review No:69 |

“I lived in a world that at any moment could erupt into fire. It was the sort of knowledge that kept you on your toes.”

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

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Jeannette Walls grew up with three siblings, an alcoholic father who drank every dime he made, and an artistic mother who made it very clear to her children that she blamed them for her lack of success. They often moved in the middle of the night — to flee the FBI, according to her father — and spent years in hard poverty. Throughout it all, Jeannette and her siblings banded together to care for each other, and drag each out of the messes that their parents constantly created. “I wanted to let the world know that no one had a perfect […]

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1/13/2016 's CBR8 Review No:8 |


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