The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

“Whoever coined the phrase 'a man's got to play the hand that was dealt him' was most certainly one piss-poor bluffer.” 

The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant. When sober, Jeannette's brilliant and charismatic father captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who abhorred the idea of domesticity and didn't want the responsibility of raising a family.

The Walls children learned to take care of themselves. They fed, clothed, and protected one another, and eventually found their way to New York. Their parents followed them, choosing to be homeless even as their children prospered.

The Glass Castle is truly astonishing--a memoir permeated by the intense love of a peculiar but loyal family.

I always find memoirs interesting - I love hearing about how other people live and what situations they face, and through The Glass Castle I got to glimpse life in a way I have never seen it before. 

Jeannette told us of her upbringing through disjointed memories from her largely nomadic childhood, moving across many different landscapes in America.

It's hard enough to get your sh*t together when you grow up in a 'normal' household, so I can't even imagine much harder it actually was with a family like that -  it really shows their inner strength to come out so successful on the other side.

It was a quick book to get through and easy to read at a leisurely pace. Definitely insightful and after finishing it, it made me want to call my Mum and Dad to say thank you for everything they did for me growing up (and still today!)