The Glass Castle

As far as I can remember, I never liked reading memoirs. How can it be any more interesting than a textbook? The only memoir I’ve ever read before The Glass Castle was about our former finance minister (are your eyes falling out of its sockets from reading this?) That’s if it can even be regarded as a memoir. If I didn’t remember wrongly, it was more like his life told from the perspective of a third person. For all I know, I only read it after submitting to the requests of my history teacher.

But I was glad I read The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. The author wrote about her past without an ounce of self-pity. What initially attracted me to this book was that her parents were homeless.

Her dad (other than the drinking and gambling) reminded me of mine, who would sometimes teach me random things kids my age never knew. The journey of reading that book was filled with laughter and tears. Best of all, she could describe it all using simple English unlike some writers who gives you a headache by using bombastic words and sentences of a hundred words long.

I think it’s too soon to make any conclusions, but what the heck, I think memoirs are cool coz they’re about progress and not about the ending like most fictional novels and you don’t really look forward to the final chapter or to finish reading it. What’s more, these are actual happenings, and thus making it even more interesting.

Reading the last page, and then looking back at its title, The Glass Castle, sent a pang of sadness through my soul.