Final Review: Love in the Present Tense by Catherine Ryan Hyde

Well apparently my sister has dropped off the face of the Earth! I was waiting for her to do her final review of The Glass Castle, but she's too slow. She had her chance; she blew it up.

In between starting and finishing The Glass Castle we started Love in the Present Tense by Catherine Ryan Hyde. As we were moving across the country (me moving, Leslie helping) we decided we could take our book club with us on the journey! We decided to get a book on cd that we could listen to on the 3 day drive. Leslie picked this one...I'm not sure why, but maybe if she ever comes back to the book club she can say why.

We didn't start the book until late on Day 2, but once we started we were pretty hooked. We forced ourselves to take breaks and do other things in the car (sing our heads off, take naps, giggle, etc.) but we did a good job of plowing through it. However, the trip wasn't quite long enough because we only got through 4 and 1/2 of the 7 discs. It equated to about 2/3 of the book. Once I got a library card here I was able to go pick up the book and finish it in paper format.

The book on cd version was good except for the readers they chose. The voices of all the characters were SO annoying. Leslie and I couldn't stop talking about how annoying they were. Eventually we got over it enough to become absorbed in the story, but they were still annoying. After I started reading the book I could still hear their dumb voices in my head as I was reading.

I thought it was a great story overall. Very original, not something I'd ever read before. Listening to the story it was kind of hard to figure out who was telling the story and at what point in time they were doing so. It was much easier to do that with the paper version of the book. I think the back and forth of the story was the only part I didn't totally enjoy. It added to the story because if it would have just went in chronological order the story would have been very different. But it was kind of confusing.

I really liked the ending to this book. It wasn't the happiest ending, but it felt good in the end to have most of the loose ends tied up. It wasn't unrealistic, but you just felt like everyone was going to be ok. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who likes fiction.

Review: The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

So we've been on hiatus for a hot minute. I was finishing my dissertation, we moved, Leslie was finishing her summer classes, we were both starting a new school year...and our books went by the wayside. BUT! We are back in the saddle. 

This weekend I finished The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. 

Wow.

That story was out of control. At fist I was just so floored by the never-ending tragedies that seemed to befall her family. And then I got mad. I tried to give her parents a LOT of leeway in the beginning. I didn't want to label them "bad parents" but instead tried to really think of them as eccentric and free-spirited. But after a certain point, I really just couldn't do it anymore. They were absolutely horrid parents. My parents are fairly eccentric. Her parents were downright neglectful and abusive. And maybe my upbringing had something to do with the way I felt about her parents. My parents have always been a little on the weird side, and our family did a lot of things differently than other people. But my parents were still parents. My mom was also an artist, like Jeannette's, but unlike Jeannette's she realized that being a starving artist wasn't good for her family, and whether it was her life's dream to be an art teacher she did it because her family needed to eat (and have clothes, books, etc.). She committed to being a parent. Jeannette's mom just wanted to cry and moan about life's injustices and in the process, made her children suffer. It was just appalling. Her father was also appalling, but I think for a number of reasons I am less "shocked" by this. First of all, he's an alcoholic. Not that being an alcoholic is an excuse to be a crappy dad, but at least I can recognize that he has a disease. Secondly, he's a dad. Again, that's not an excuse to be a terrible parent, but it's less surprising when dads fall down on the job. When a mom falls down on the job it's pretty big. When my parents divorced and we lived with our dad it was pretty abnormal, and our mom was still involved with us, we just didn't live with her. So to have a mom who so clearly sucked at all things mom was pretty alarming. I was thinking about this after I finished the book and I was wondering if Jeannette's mom has an undiagnosed mental health condition. This is the only reason I can even begin to understand as to why she would behave the way she did. But maybe that's just me trying to come up with an excuse for her (like her father's disease). When Maureen loses it at the end it made me wonder if there was a history of mental illness in the family and maybe her mother was mentally ill as well. 

Overall I liked the story, but I'm not sure if I want to read another book by Jeannette Walls. At least if it has to do with her family, and especially any more stories from her childhood. This book seriously disturbed me. I woke up with bad dreams three different times last night. I hate the thought of children being abused and neglected. It makes me so sad. If you can get past the horrible neglect and abuse I would very much recommend this book.

Review: The Glass Castle

I finally started reading The Glass Castle the other day and I am glad so far. I have only read about the first 50 pages and so far it is really good. Jeanette seems like a child in a family that is very free! They are constantly on the run from bill collectors and her parents don't seem to pay much attention to rules or watching after their children closely. First Jeanette burns herself horribly and then later she falls out of the car (her parents returned for her after quite a drive!). Her father is an alcoholic - verbally abusive at times but also loving at others.

So far I haven't decided what my opinion is on her parents' upbringing - are the negligent or hippies??