Jeannette Walls Ruined My Son’s Play Dates!

Books find their way to our attention in a variety of ways. Some because they get hyped in the press months before publication (think The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown), some because they are from authors we have loved in the past (Shanghai Girls by Lisa See), some just because the book cover calls out to us (the paperback version of Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum). Even with all of these ways books can try to grab our attention we can’t read everything! Some of the best books we’ve read have come from customer recommendations. This was the case with one of our favorite books, The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls.

It was just a regular day at the Bookshop about 5 years ago. I was chatting with a customer about books and she told me I simply had to read The Glass Castle. In truth, it sounded depressing. The author’s life sounded horrible and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to read it. Something about the sincerity of this customer’s recommendation stuck with me and I quickly got my hands on the audio book. I was hooked from the first 5 sentences.

I found myself shouting out loud to the CD, yelling at the parents who were neglecting Jeannette and her siblings. I called the Bookshop at least 5 times during the book to say “you can’t believe what they just did!!”. I was so engrossed in the book that I would leave an hour early to pick my older son up at kindergarten just so my younger son would fall asleep in the car and I could sit in the school parking lot and listen to the book. Yes, my son took his naps in the car seat because of Jeannette Walls! I remember yelling in the car at the scene toward the end of the book when her father sends her upstairs at the bar with a man. I am pretty sure that my son lost out on a few playdates because other parents witnessed that scene! Stay away from the crazy lady in the station wagon!

As engrossed and amazed as I was by this book, it was somehow not depressing. Jeannette Walls parents did care about her but they were not able to care for her. Despite hunger and neglect, she managed to create a very successful life for herself and you cheer her every step of the way. I can’t remember reading a book where I have wanted to meet the author more at the end of it. I can’t wait to meet this person who dug food out of the school cafeteria trash cans, fashioned her own homemade braces and went on to be a respected journalist. She’s coming to Sandwich on Wednesday October 28th at 7:00pm. I’ll be there!

Her new book, Half Broke Horses (the fictionalized biography of her maternal grandmother) which comes out tomorrow provides some new insight into her mother and where she came from. Too bad I don’t have any more napping children to drive around!