The Glass Castle

Ah, summer.

I love summer. I really do. I love the light, free feeling that surrounds you, keeping you safe of the pressure and the fear of whatever is to come. And though it's true that soon there will be no summer and I won't have that light, free feeling I have now, that's okay.

Because right now, I'm focusing on the present, and not whatever lies ahead of me. I'm focusing on how wonderful I feel and how happy I am and how I like the way that it is and I'm going to enjoy it.

But today, around... 5:30, I wasn't enjoying things that much.

The Glass Castle.
Ended.

I don't know, I guess I just finished it without realizing it because when I read the last word and tried to flip to the next page, all I could find was the 'About The Author' and the preview of Jeannette Walls's latest book.

It was just... gone.

When I was in Montreal with my family, we went to tons of cute French cafes and beautiful parks and small stores where my sisters and I tried on dress after shirt after skirt. And no matter where I went, I always had The Glass Castle.

Whenever I got bored, or simply had an excuse to read, I went right for it.

We always moved around in Montreal. We went from place to place, always new things to see and places to be, so I tended to only read about 2 pages at a time. It never mattered. Because there was not one boring part in that book.

Everything I read was what the Walls family called, an adventure.

May the adventure be good or bad, it was always there. And each one was more exciting than the other.

Sometimes, it was Rex Walls, the father of the family. He could have been stealing Lori and Jeannette's New York escape money, or nearly throwing his wife out the window because he lost his temper. But other times, it was him giving each of the kids their own star from the night sky as a Christmas present.

No matter what it was, everything in that book kept me wanting more.

Jeannette Walls's tragic story attached to me in a hungry and kind of curious way. Today, when I was talking to a friend about the book, I found myself describing that, even though I hated in some scenes what was going on, I still loved reading it.

If that makes sense.

There's a part in the book where the family moves in with their father's parents. Jeannette's grandmother Erma is abusive and pained. She's mean and just a nasty, cruel woman. I hated that at that time that was what their life was, but I still loved reading it.

I couldn't understand what it was I was feeling exactly. At times, I hated what was going on so much, I felt like tearing up the pages I was reading.

But I never could because it was so unusual and beautiful and interesting and just plain good.

I was also so confused about how incredible Jeannette Walls, the author of this memoir, seemed to be able to describe it. How exciting it was and how much I found myself wanting more horrible things to come because the way Jeannette explained them blew me away. I want to write like her someday. I really hope I will.

I took so many things with me when I finished the book, but there's one thing I took with me the most. I slowly began to see that although I had this feeling of loss because of finishing the book, I realized that there must be so many more books as moving and exciting and beautiful as The Glass Castle. Enough, that I have the rest of my life yet to discover them.

The Glass Castle helped me realize that, without it, I would never have gained the pleasure I have of getting to know the Walls family, the lesson that more wonderful books wait for me, and the time that it consumed making my so far excellent summer even better.

Thank you Jeannette Walls.