Murs, Jeannette. The Glass Castle: A Memoir. New York, NY: Scribner, 2005. Print. This book was chosen to show that coming from a dysfunctional family does not have to hinder a person's future success. Jeannette Walls is a journalist, writer and former contributing gossip columnist for MSNBC.com. Despite experiencing their childhood at the hands of neglectful parents, Jeannette Walls and her siblings developed strength and achieved admirable success through their unconventional life of poverty. The Walls family has four children, Lori; the eldest daughter, Jeannette; second eldest daughter, Brian; youngest son and Maureen; the youngest daughter. Lori has always been the smartest and most artistic child in her family; at seven years old, she was already rereading her mother's manuscripts (Walls 38). Jeannette was the only child who still trusted her father (Walls 79). Brian was the brave child who never cried or cried (Walls 28). Maureen was the lost child who never seemed to spend time at home and who developed a powerful religious streak because of the Pentecostal family she frequently visited (Walls 206). Their father, Rex Walls, was an alcoholic who "could talk blue, telling stories of jobs he never had and college degrees he never earned" (Walls 19) . Their mother, Rose Mary Walls, had a teaching degree but hated her job and preferred to live in excitement and pursue her passion for art at the expense of her family's well-being (Walls 74). These children were raised in different and poor environments. The phrase the family adopted for their frequent travels was “doing the skedaddle” (Walls 19). The children were alone from a very young age. The beginning of Jeannette...... middle of paper ...... living education. In conclusion, instead of having a story that delves into sad prose about the horror of the author's life, this book was surprisingly light-hearted. Although there are some saddening parts in the memoir, Jeannette has achieved a balance of pity, warmth, and light humor that can make you admire while cringing at the way Wall's parents raised their children . The way Jeannette approached and described her difficult childhood was unique because it made readers feel pity not only for her and her siblings, but sometimes for their parents as well. Overall, I highly recommend reading this book because it gives the reader a very descriptive look at the author's childhood, but in such a unique way that the ending will show you that in some cases it doesn't matter what happens in a family, they will always be together.