Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls

“She wore tight corsets to give her a teeny waist – I helped her lace them up – but they had the effect of causing her to faint. Mom called it the vapors and said that it was a sign of her high breeding and delicate nature. I thought it was a sign that the corset made it hard to breathe.” – Chapter 1, pg. 18

“I always figured horses are smarter than they let on. Kind of like the Indians who pretend they can’t speak English because no good ever came from talking with the Anglos.” – Chapter 1, pg. 22

“Mom hinted a couple of times that it was good I was going to college, since with one failed marriage behind me, I’d have trouble landing a good husband and would need something to fall back on. ‘A package that’s been opened once doesn’t have the same appeal,’ she said.” – Chapter 4, pg. 89

“When people kill themselves, they think they’re ending the pain, but all they’re doing is passing it on to those they leave behind.” – Chapter 5, pg. 113

“For the most part, pioneers and ranchers didn’t have the time or money for gift giving and tree trimming, and they tended to treat Christmas like Prohibition, another eastern aberration that wasn’t of much concern to them. A couple of years back, when some missionaries were trying to dazzle the Navajos into converting, they had a gift-bearing Santa Claus jump out of a plane, but his parachute didn’t open, and he landed with a thud in front of the Indians, convincing them – and most of the rest of us – that the less we had to do with jolly old Saint Nick, the better off we’d be.” – Chapter 6, pg. 176

“Anyone who thinks he’s too small to make a difference has never been bit by a mosquito.” – Chapter 8, pg.246

So those were some of my favorite book quotes from Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls.

I’m pleasantly surprised this book didn’t make me want to kill someone. Unlike The Glass Castle, I actually liked the main characters. (I think their hatred for Rex Walls might have had something to do with it). Perhaps, this time around, I was mentally prepared for the author’s exaggerations.

However, what's up with the contradictory statement on the cover? A true-life novel? That makes sense. Walls even admits in the acknowledgments that she never talked to her grandmother. Instead, her mom was "so very unfailingly generous with her stories, memories and observations.” Or, in other words, Rose Mary made up a bunch of crap that wasn’t true and Jeannette used it to write another “interesting woman” story where she could throw in the book’s title about a half a dozen times. I do love her sense of humor though. Plus, it was a very quick read. Just steer clear if you are of Mormon faith – there is a good chance you might be offended.

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.