My Thoughts

Blog #5: Personal Review

I thought that the novel The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls was very well written. It was captivating and contains well-written anecdotes of her childhood. She gives an unbiased view of her childhood and accurately describes her surroundings. The novel offers cases of irony and imagery, which only made the novel more compelling. I personally liked the way Walls described each character. Every character that Walls mentioned had some importance or relevance in her life. Through the comments and discussion of other minor but important characters, one is able to further understand Jeannette Walls’ childhood. Since the novel covers a couple decades, the reader is also able to see the character develop and change through out the novel. This is an important aspect to the novel and, in my opinion, makes the novel a lot stronger.
The Glass Castle was an excellent book, however there was one thing that I did not like about it. The only problem I have with this novel is that since it is a memoir, there are very little rhetorical strategies and other literary devices. It was hard to analysis this novel since it was simply an anecdote without a deeper meaning or purpose.
While the memoir format may create a problem when it comes to annotating the novel, it is also something that makes this novel unique. It leads to a more casual tone and creates a more personal bond between the author and the reader. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and it helps me appreciate my stable home life, which I so often take for granite.