Glass Castle 1 . . .

. . . I love this book! After just reading the preface I can tell that I am really going to enjoy the Glass Castle. The basic premise of the book is based around a middle aged successful woman from New York reflecting upon her . . . unique childhood. The book begins with her earliest memory of lighting herself on fire while making hotdogs- at the age of three. While at the hospital, the nurses seem to express distinctive distain upon the way this young girls' parents are raising her. But this social outcasting doesn't stop at the ER. Instead, it seems to follow her throughout her entire life as she grows up with her extremely eccentric, and often dangerously different, parents. Her father is exuberant, inventive, and almost childlike in a way. But when he drinks, he becomes someone no one with any sense of self preservation wants to be around. Her mother is also adventerous and excitable and tries, even against reason, to teach her children to be self sufficient and imaginative. But the Walls children can't help but learn how to survive on their own as they are often left to fend for themselves when their parents are gone. But they learn to depend on eachother as they are constantly doing the "skeedattle" ( as Mr. Walls calls it ) to run from the FBI (tax collectors ) or Mafia ( the most recent casino Mr. Walls has cheated ), never allowing the kids to lay permanent roots. And this is all in the first few chapters! I can't wait to read the rest of the book with its endeering story of a family that chose to go against the grain in about as many ways possible.