The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

“I wondered if the fire had been out to get me. I wondered if all fire was related, like Dad said all humans were related, if the fire that had burned me that day while I cooked hot dogs was somehow connected to the fire I had flushed down the toilet and the fire burning at the hotel. I didn’t have the answers to those questions, but what I did know was that I lived in a world that at any moment could erupt into flames. It was the sort of knowledge that kept you on your toes.” – Chapter 2, pg. 34

“We laughed about all the kids who believed in the Santa myth and got nothing for Christmas but a bunch of cheap plastic toys. Years from now, when all the junk they got was broken and long forgotten, we would still have our stars.” – Chapter 2, pg. 41

“The baby went without a name for weeks. Mom said she wanted to study it first, the way she would the subject of a painting. We had a lot of arguments over what the name should be. I wanted to call her Rosita, after the prettiest girl in my class, but Mom said that name was too Mexican. I told her we weren’t supposed to be prejudiced. She responded that it wasn’t being prejudice, but that it was a matter of accuracy in labeling.” – Chapter 2, pg. 46

“The few teachers the town did have were not exactly the pick of the litter, as Dad liked to say, and despite the shortage, one would get fired from time to time. A couple of weeks earlier, Miss Page had gotten the ax when the principal caught her toting a loaded rifle down the school hall. Miss Page said all she wanted to do was motivate her students to do their homework.”
– Chapter 2, pg. 73

“I just stood there looking from one distorted face to another, listening to this babble of enraged squabbling as the members of the Walls family gave vent to all their years of hurt and anger, each unloading his or her own accumulated grievances and blaming the others for allowing the most fragile one of us to break into pieces.” – Chapter 4, pg. 276

So those were some of my favorite book quotes from The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls.

I spent the entire 288 pages fuming mad. I absolutely hate Rose Mary and Rex Walls. They had me wishing I lived in the type of country where I could get away with first degree murder (since this is a memoir and they are real people I actually want to shoot). I don’t know if you can get in trouble for saying something like that on the internet, but I guess it really doesn’t matter since Rex died of a heart attack and Rose Mary is currently homeless on some

street in New York (although, I doubt that is still the case now that her daughter's book has sold more than 2.5 million copies). I get why people love it so much – one unbelievable story after another. But if you ask me, the stories were too unbelievable. Maybe I just can't stand reading about dysfunctional families. I strongly believe people who contribute nothing to society (and then leech off of that society) should be shot. And alcoholic fathers who can't feed their own children (leaving them to eat a sugared stick of butter) should be waterboarded first and then shot. At the very least, reading about Jeannette’s parents sure made me appreciate my own.