I'm just in a literary mood.

I just finished reading The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. All of you get off your butts THIS INSTANT, go to a library or a bookstore, and get a copy. You may not realize how lucky you are until you read this book. I'll try not to put any spoilers in here, but it's hard to spoil a memoir anyway. But if you really want to read and find things out for yourself, I suggest you stop reading right about now.

Jeannette Walls escaped her life very narrowly. Her father was a drunk, her mother was a self-proclaimed excitement addict, and she had several abusive family members growing up. She never really got to pinpoint an exact place to call her childhood home, though there are about three places where most of the story happens. In Battle Mountain, her father explores the idea of mining gold and building a Glass Castle for his family once he strikes it rich. Her grandmother left her mother a house in Phoenix that was the first real home they ever really owned. After her father progressively sank lower into his drunkenness, the family decided to move to Welch, West Virginia to live near her father's parents. Her grandmother, who demanded to be called Erma, was abusive to the children and banished them to the basement after getting in a fight with Jeannette's older sister. The family moved to a tiny shack in a sketchy neighborhood and just barely made it by, with their father often out for days on end and their mother refusing to be tied down in a job. Jeannette and her older sister Lori begin dreaming of life in New York. Eventually, they both make it there, closely followed by their younger brother Brian and younger sister Maureen. Both parents also end up in New York in an attempt to keep the family together, though they're usually at each other's throats. Jeannette manages to finish college and find work at a magazine and is happily married by the end of the  book. What strikes me about this book is the conditions she often had to live in. She tells of her house in Welch as overcrowded and dangerous, with no electricity or heat. After a big rain, the house grew mold, part of the ceiling fell out, and the front stairs rotted through completely. What little food they had just went rancid most of the time, as they didn't have a fridge, and there's a story involving a canned ham and some maggots that makes my skin crawl. Her family ate what they could and went hungry most of the time.

Jeannette Walls is officially my hero. Seriously, go read this book.