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Suzanne
Rating:
 
Review
This is an impressive, very interesting, well-written memoir about how Jeannette and her siblings grew up with two parents who refused to work to support them most of the time, insisting that they all pretend it was some great adventure. Indeed, they did teach the little tykes a few survival skills that would've come in handy one or two hundred years ago. At first I thought her mother was an interesting, artistic, counter-culture type, but I ended up just appalled with her. It's one thing to say you're not going to work even if you go hungry and homeless – it's quite another to make four children suffer for your choice, living in squalor in the cold, without indoor plumbing, and nearly starving. I was shocked by the hard way these parents treated their children, while at the same time seeming to love them. Rex, Jeanette's father, was a big dreamer and an alcoholic, who stole from his own children and let his daughter get pawed by some drunk in order to win money off him in a pool game. Both parents believed that they were doing their children a favor by teaching them to get by on their own and be resourceful. Even after all the unnecessary, extreme hardships, the author's tone isn't bitter or depressing at all – Walls doesn't come across as judgmental, which I found astonishing. The thing I can't get over is that her parents lived this way by choice.
Most Horrible Line:
"She kept dreaming that she was being eaten by rats…" (pg. 156)
Kim
Rating:
Review
This memoir starts out with the author in a taxi on her way to a party in New York City, when, while stopped at a red light, she sees her mother rummaging through a trash can a few feet away. It doesn't slow down from there either. Recalling her childhood, spent largely in Nevada, Arizona and West Virginia, Ms. Walls was raised by nomadic, and not entirely law-abiding parents, Rex and Rose Mary, along with older sister, Lori, and younger siblings Brian and Maureen. Their living conditions were poor and ramshackle most of the time, and hardship clearly shaped the author into the woman she is now. But it didn't seem to destroy her soul, and her ambition and drive are much to be admired. There were many vignettes in this book that I liked a lot, especially when the author recalls feeling self-conscious of her smile so she creates her own homemade braces, through trial, error and several broken rubber bands in the middle of the night. Her childhood was definitely adventurous (her mom often claimed to be as addicted to adventure and her dad was to alcohol), while bordering on neglectful and abusive at times. I devoured this book in less than two days, so to say I enjoyed it would be an understatement.
Best Line:
about the author's first bicycle, which was eerily similar to my first bike, "It was shiny purple and had a white banana seat, wire baskets on the side, chrome handlebars that swept out like steer horns, and white plastic handles with purple-and-silver tassels."
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