THE GLASS CASTLE by Jeannette Walls
is an unbelievable memoir about her life growing up in the most unusual family. She and her two sisters and brother were reared by parents who couldn’t live in the real world, and barely fed, clothed or looked after their children. They were constantly on the move.
The author’s mother describes herself as an excitement freak and labels everything that happens to them as an adventure. She is a free spirit who hated the idea of domesticity and didn’t want the responsibility of raising a family. She is also very smart. Her father is brilliant and charming and captures his children’s imagination, teaching them physics, geology and incredibly he has gained all his knowledge by on his own. The only problem is he is also an alcoholic, who becomes dishonest and self destructive when he drinks.
This incredible tale is told without self-pity and blame. This unconventional family had love, loyalty and they embraced life fearlessly. I would highly recommend this book, it’s an amazing story.
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MY SISTER'S KEEPER by Jodi Picoult
is the story of a family, a most unusual one. They are dealing with a daughter , who has leukemia, her younger sister Anna, who was conceived as a bone marrow match for her, their older brother Jessie and of course, Mom and Dad.
The narrator is 13 year old Anna, but the story is also told from each person’s perspective, in their own chapters. This makes it so easy to comprehend where each of them are coming from. It is a breathtaking, emotional story in which many issues are explored, including the moral, practical and emotional complications, involved in having a very sick child.
I found this novel very compelling and would highly recommend it not only as a good story but also one that makes you think about what you would do in the same situation.
Next month I have chosen, WATER FOR ELEPHANTS by Sara Gruen. If you would like to join the discussion please contact me by clicking on the e mail address at the bottom of the page.
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FALLING ANGELS, by Tracy Chevalier.
January 1901, the day after Queen Victoria’s death: Two families visit neighboring graves in a fashionable London cemetery. One is decorated with a sentimental angel, the other an elaborate urn. The Waterhouses revere the late Queen and cling to Victorian traditions; the Colemans look forward to a more modern society. To their mutual distaste, the families are inextricably linked when their daughters become friends behind the tombstones. And worse, befriend the gravedigger’s son.
As the girls grow up and the new century finds its feet, as cars replace horses and electricity outshines gas lighting, Britain emerges from the shadows of oppressive Victorian values to a golden Edwardian summer. It is then that the beautiful, frustrated Mrs Coleman makes a bid for greater personal freedom, with disastrous consequences, and the lives of the Colemans and the Waterhouses are changed forever.
A poignant tale of two families brought reluctantly together, Falling Angels is an intimate story of childhood friendships, sexual awakening and human frailty. Yet its epic sweep takes in the changing of a nation, the fight for women’s suffrage and the questioning of steadfast beliefs.
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