Nonfiction Book Reviews

I had heard about The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls from SmallWorld Reads (another book blog), who highly recommended it.  It turns out that Glass Castle was on the New York Times bestseller list for two years, and yet I had never heard of it until SmallWorld mentioned it.  Don’t ask me where I’ve been.

Now that I’ve finally read it, I can see why SmallWorld (and the rest of the world, incidentally) loved it so much.  This autobiography reminded me in some ways of Three Weeks with my Brother by Nicholas Sparks.  Both sets of parents had an “interesting” outlook on parenting (basically, let the kids do whatever they wanted, as long as it didn’t actually kill anyone else) and they were both raised in extreme poverty.  But while Nicholas’ parents at least tried to feed and clothe their children, Jeannette’s parents didn’t always even do that.

This is an honest and open memoir - the some of the things that Jeannette went through as a child makes your heart hurt.  Her parents, at many points during her childhood, did not provide even the most basic of necessities - food, clothing, and at some points, shelter.  Yet unlike A Child Called It, where this is because the parent is trying to torture the child, in Glass Castle it is more simply because the parents are free-spirits, with a distinct lack of planning skills.  Oh, and the father is an alcoholic who drinks most of their money away.

At one point, a family member dies, leaving the parents with a house and quite a bit of money.  I was cheering for the family at this point - surely they would use this money to actually get ahead in life, right?  But even as I was cheering for them, I knew it wouldn’t happen.  The parents are beyond irresponsible, and sure enough, the money soon disappeared. The house fell into major disrepair, and they eventually left and moved back East, leaving the house empty behind them.

The most mind-boggling part of the book is that Jeannette clearly loves her parents.  Even though they leave her and her siblings nothing to eat at various times (forcing Jeannette to eat butter for dinner at one point) and even though their parenting style is far beyond neglectful, into the realm of outright child abuse, Jeannette seems to have been able to look back on her life and appreciate the good parts about her parents, and the things they tried to do for their children.

I think this is what makes this memoir so wonderful - it is not bitter or hateful in any way.  She loves her parents, warts and all.  It is a testament to the human spirit that she could endure something like this, and still look back on it all with love for her parents.

Despite this upbringing (or perhaps in some ways, because of it) Jeannette became quite successful in the news world, eventually becoming a columnist for MSNBC.com, until she decided to take a break and just write books for a while.  If you’re interested in more information about Glass Castle, then you’ll definitely want to check out this interview done with Jeannette Walls (warning: It’s long!) where she talks about her parents, the book, and the impact it’s had on her life.

Glass Castle was a terrific memoir - one of the best I’ve read.  I give it 4.75 out of 5 stars.  If you’re one of the few people left who haven’t read this book, go check it out.  You won’t regret it.

Hava

I have to confess: I’ve never read a single Nicholas Sparks book. I own the movie The Notebook, and only found out by pure chance a couple of weeks ago that it was based on a Nicholas Sparks book. I had no clue. I check out a lot of Nicholas Sparks books to patrons, and quite frankly, all of the titles just run together in my mind. I had never paid attention to the fact that one of them was named The Notebook. A keen eye for details, I have not.

So why did I read Three Weeks With My Brother by Nicholas and Micah Sparks? Well, I was wandering about Barnes and Noble with my husband, and for once, I was waiting for him to finish reading a book before we could go. (Needless to say, it’s usually the other way around). I wandered over to the biography section, and there was Three Weeks With My Brother. I was surprised. I hadn’t realized that Nicholas Sparks had written anything but fiction. I picked the book up and started reading.

And just loved it. I was laughing (quietly, of course - heaven forbid I get kicked out of B&N!) just a few pages in. He has an excellent writing style, which after I thought about it, realized it only made sense. The guy makes his living by writing. If his writing style left something to be desired, I rather think he wouldn’t be on the New York Times Bestseller list regularly.

I can’t testify myself that his fiction writing style is fantastic, but I can his memoir writing style. His parents were unique in their child-raising techniques, to say the least. The following is a little long, but I think captures the childhood of Nicholas and his older brother, Micah, quite well:

On the first day of kindergarten, Mom walked with Micah to the bus stop; from there forward, he walked by himself. Within a week, he told my mom that some older girls, 7th grade or thereabouts but huge to a kindergartener, had cornered him in the junkyard and taken his milk money. Then they threatened him; they said that if he didn’t bring them a nickel every day, they were going to hurt him.

“They said they’re going to beat me up bad,” Micah cried.

There are a number of ways a parent could handle such a situation. My mom could have started walking him to school regularly, for instance, or walked with him one day, confronted the girls, and threatened to call the police if another incident occurred…Not my mom. Instead, after Micah told his story, she rose from the table and…when she returned, she was carrying an old Roy Rogers lunchbox; rusty and dented, it had been her younger brother’s years before.

“We’ll put your lunch in this tomorrow, instead of a brown bag,” she said, and if they try to take your money, just wind up and hit ‘em with it. Like this…”

Cocking her arm like a lion tamer, she began swinging the lunchbox in wide arcs, demonstrating while my brother sat at the table watching.

The next day, my six-year-old brother marched off to school with his hand-me-down lunchbox. And just as they’d threatened, the girls surrounded him when he wouldn’t give them his nickel. When the first one charged, he did exactly as my mom had told him.

In our bedroom that night, Micah related to me what happened.

“I swung with everything I had,” he said.

“Weren’t you scared?”

With his lips pressed together, he nodded. “But I kept swinging and hitting them until they ran away crying.”

The girls, I might add, never bothered him again.
~Page 25 - 26 of Three Weeks With My Brother

Yup, the mother actually showed her son (a kindergartener) how to beat up a group of 7th graders, and more amazingly still, he succeeded.  The parents were big fans of the Tough Love School of Parenting.

They were…relaxed, I guess is the kindest way to put it, in their parenting style. They gave their kids BB guns, which Nicholas (they called him Nicky as a child) and Micah used with wild abandon until the sheriff came and took them away. To console the children, the parents then gave them a bow and arrow set, with real arrows. None of the wussy plastic shafts and bunted tips for them. The kids played with that until (you guessed it) the sheriff came and took that away too. They came a little too close to killing other people one too many times.

So where does the three weeks part come in? Well, in 2002, Nicholas and Micah embark on a trip around in the world, which lasts for three weeks. It’s quite an adventure, and Nicholas always starts the chapter out in present time, and then jumps back in history to their childhood. It is their autobiography, not just a story about those three weeks in 2002. And I do mean “their” - really, it’s an autobiography of the whole Sparks family, with the emphasis on Nicholas and Micah.

I cried hard and laughed a lot too - it is one of the best autobiographies that I have ever read. Even if you’ve never read a lick of Sparks’ writing and have no interest in learning more about him (hmmm…sounds familiar) if you like autobiographies, you’ll love this book. Heck, if you just love a good story, you’ll love this book.

I’m giving it a rare 5 out of 5 stars. Thanks for the amazing book, Nicky. I just might have to read one of your fiction books someday…

Havs