I just finished The Glass Castle by Jeannette Wells (aka Running with Scissors - the girl version).
Here’s another memoir of a girl growing up in a totally whacked family - but hey she turns out great, ends up going to Barnard and is now a totally together writer/novelist and happily married to her fabulous husband.
The story itself kept me interested just because every memory of her childhood was more hideous then the next - being horribly burned while cooking her own hotdogs at the age of 3 and then having her parents pull her out of the hospital because they didn’t believe in medical treatment, rooting through the garbage cans at school because they never had any food in their house, having her father bring her to a bar to “hustle” her - every story was heartwrenching.
What I really didn’t like about this book was that it was told from a very factual, almost clinical standpoint. The writing was very simplistic without any of the beautiful prose, a la Angela’s Ashes, and you just didn’t feel any emotions from the author. I didn’t feel her pain at all so why was I reading the story of a horrible childhood without any of the gut-wrenching emotion to go along with it.
In sum - this is the typical “Oprah/bookclub” read (in fact it was my bookclub selection this month) that just didn’t do it for me.
June 17th, 2005 at 10:34 am
How does that work in a book club setting when the required book sucks? Is the “recommender” required to by the wine for the next meeting? Are they skipped in the rotation for a turn? Are they shunned?
June 17th, 2005 at 12:53 pm
In my neck of the woods we try and be a little polite to each other and not bark “This book SUCKED” to each other and in fact - I was only one of 2 in the group who didn’t like the book. The way we work is that each month someone gets to present 3 books to the group and we vote on which one to read…….you win some, you lose some.
June 17th, 2005 at 1:04 pm
What about accountability? Should you protest by recommending a book that sucks?
Interestingly, I was looking into this Jeannette Walls character while formatting the page. Apparently she is now a gossip columnist for MSNBC. Perfect.