The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls

" The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant. When sober, Jeannette's brilliant and charismatic father captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who abhorred the idea of domesticity and didn't want the responsibility of raising a family.

The Walls children learned to take care of themselves. They fed, clothed, and protected one another, and eventually found their way to New York. Their parents followed them, choosing to be homeless even as their children prospered."

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls was the second of two books that I had to read for school. I hadn't read too many memoirs before, so I wasn't too sure how to react to it-- should I be analyzing the text, looking in the story for themes and motifs? After a few chapters I understood that I should just be reading for the story, which wasn't bad. Jeannette Walls talks about her rough upcoming, but constantly through the book I was asking, so what? I didn't see any clear ideas showing through that really encompassed the whole story. Jeannette Walls writes well though, her chapters only one or two pages, almost like articles. You get a really good idea of the weaknesses of her parents, and she displays them as people, not glorifying them through a child's eyes, but not villainizing them because of how they raised her. 

I don't think I would really recommend this book-- I found the whole thing kind of sad, and didn't take anything away from it except knowing about a random persons life. 2/5 stars.

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

"Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. When Lily's fierce-hearted black "stand-in mother" , Rosaleen, insults three of the deepest racists in town, Lily decides to spring them both free. They escape to Tiburon, South Carolina- a town that holds the secret to her mother's past. Taken in by an eccentric trio of black bee-keeping sisters, Lily is introduced to the mesmerizing world of bees and honey, and the black Madonna. This is a remarkable novel about divine female power, a story that women will share and pass on to their daughters for years to come."

This book tackled a lot of issues and themes; racial discrimination, feminism, religion, and growing up, and I think it did it well. It was interesting that the story was told from the point of view of a white girl. What made Lily an interesting character was that she had a bit of racism in her herself- she had grown up in South Carolina, raised by a white father, what were you to expect? So her fight in the book wasn't against racism in general, it was really just against the racism in herself. But the thing is, Lily wasn't evil, she wasn't a bad person because she was racist, and because of this the reader could understand racism a bit more than if the story were told by a black person villainizing white racists. You get an up close and personal look into what makes someone racist, and what can cure them of it. Lily really only realized how it feels to be discriminated against for skin color when she was surrounded by black people and they didn't want her around. She realized how stupid and superficial of a reason it was to judge people. 

A lot of this book centers around the figure of the Black Madonna/ the Virgin Mary, and besides tying religion into the story, it introduces a sort of feminist, girl-power theme. There is a group of black women that call themselves the Daughters of Mary and worship the Black Madonna, which is not typical of Christianity--Jesus Christ is barely mentioned, and when He is it's by male characters. But what the women are worshiping isn't even the mother of Christ- no, they are worshiping "the mother of thousands", like a queen bee in a hive. And Mary is inside all of them, lending them strength, giving them the will to fight back. I liked this take on religion, the idea that what we worship is not so much figures from a story, but what they represent, the qualities that they have. 

I thought that The Secret Life of Bees was written very well. The imagery was beautiful and vivid, the characters came to life and were easy to connect to, and the plot ran smoothly. But something that I found especially interesting about the writing was the use of smells. Yes, in English class we learn to describe something using all five senses, but in reality descriptions involve mostly sight and a bit of sound. Yet Sue Monk Kidd gave us a pungent tour through most of the South Carolina plant species and a good amount of the cooking too, which really enhanced the setting of the book. Color and light were also used in heavy doses, along with bird imagery and a good amount of symbolism, which sated the more analytical side of me. 

In The Secret Life of Bees Sue Monk Kidd skillfully portrays the idea of racism in the South during the time of the Civil Rights Act, presenting it in a way so that the reader can understand and accept it without simply dismissing it as "bad" and "wrong", but at the same time Sue Monk Kidd doesn't turn her story into a parable preaching against discrimination. Although I enjoyed the book and there was a lot to think about, it didn't leave too much of an impression on me like other books have. I think this was in part to a lot of the questions and ideas being cleared up, answered, or defined by the end; there weren't any of the ideas that two people could debate different sides of and neither one be right or wrong. The ending was pretty predictable in my mind-there weren't any plot twists and everything was wrapped up happily the way you wanted it to be. Overall a good read, but not the kind that sticks.


Update
August 12 2013--

I forgot to say in this review that I wished the character of t.ray-- lily's father--- had been developed a bit more. 

Used Book Haul

Finally, finally, after a week of excruciating finals, I finished school today. And what better way to kick off the summer than with a book haul? There's this adorable used book store right across the street from my school where mismatched wooden bookcases and stacked crates house every beaten, battered, and dog-eared copy you could dream of. No one can blame me for splurging a little.

Truth be told, I had a little housekeeping to take care of. For sophomore year I have to read The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls and one other book from the list of the following:

Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

Shine by Lauren Myracle

About a Boy by Nick Hornby

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

Out of these choices Rocket Boys, About A Boy, and The Secret Life of Bees appealed the most to me, but  I decided to start with the latter.

"Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. When Lily's fierce-hearted black "stand-in mother" , Rosaleen, insults three of the deepest racists in town, Lily decides to spring them both free. They escape to Tiburon, South Carolina- a town that holds the secret to her mother's past. Taken in by an eccentric trio of black bee-keeping sisters, Lily is introduced to the mesmerizing world of bees and honey, and the black Madonna. This is a remarkable novel about divine female power, a story that women will share and pass on to their daughters for years to come."

-Back cover of The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

This book appealed to me for a number of reasons-

1.) Reading the back cover reminded me a lot of the movie The Help with the idea of rights for African-Americans and black stand-in mothers. I really enjoyed that movie and thought it showed a time and place in America that isn't often portrayed.

2.) The part about the beekeepers and the honey instantly made me think of Charlotte Charles from Bryan Fuller's Pushing Daisies (one of my favorite shows!) and her Honey for the Homeless campaign. There's probably no real connection or parallel, but I thought it was cute. And bees are obviously going to be some sort of meaning or symbolism in the book, which is relatively uncommon in my experience, so that will be interesting to think about.

3.) There's the mystery aspect to it. I presume from the back cover that Lily's mother's death had some sort of mystery surrounding it, and a little bit of guessing and secrets is a surefire way to keep me interested in a book.

Sorry for my unnecessary and inconsistent artsyness in that shot. I don't know what came over me.

" The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant. When sober, Jeannette's brilliant and charismatic father captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who abhorred the idea of domesticity and didn't want the responsibility of raising a family.
The Walls children learned to take care of themselves. They fed, clothed, and protected one another, and eventually found their way to New York. Their parents followed them, choosing to be homeless even as their children prospered."
-The back cover of The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

I'm looking forward to reading a memoir/ autobiography (woah, what's the difference? I never thought about that before...) I haven't read too many, and I'm sure you have to approach this kind of work with a different lens than you would with a novel. 

"The highly original satire about Oedipa Maas, a woman who finds herself enmeshed in a world-wide conspiracy, meets some extremely interesting characters, and attains a not-inconsiderable amount of self-knowledge."

-Back cover of The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon

Well, this is... an interesting story. You see, this book is one of my dad's all-time favorites. So since father's day was coming up, I thought it would be in accordance with the actions of a thoughtful and caring daughter to purchase a copy for him. However, I didn't realize until it was too late that hard-cover copies of this book are no longer printed, which is why the few I found online were priced at around three hundred dollars ( I assumed a typo was at fault) Anyways, father's day passed, and no present. So today when I wandered into Tim's Used Books and spied this little copy sitting on the shelf, I felt it was my duty as a daughter- to make my dad buy it for himself. Smooth, I know. But it's the thought that counts, right?

Anyways, I think this will be a good read since it was referenced repeatedly in Foster's How To Read Literature Like A Professor.

PS-- For some strange reason I love when I buy a used book to realize that it's been annotated by it's previous owner. There's something special in knowing that someone else held this exact same book as you, enjoyed this exact same copy, and through their notes you can almost follow along with their thought process. It's a really pure way of seeing someone- seeing what's in their head.

AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST

I couldn't resist this little copy of Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. We just finished this in English class, and ever since my teacher collected our books my backpack has felt just a little too empty- 107 printed pages of too empty, to be exact. It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of Steinbeck, and this book impressed me yet again. It's a slim little novel that has great power and force of idea, and since it's so short there's really no excuse to not read it.

Have I guilt-tripped you enough now?

So these will fill up at least the start of my summer, and now that I have a little bit more free time on my hands I'll definitely be updating this blog more often!

Au revoir-
Skye

pps-- sorry for that awk little copy and paste patch mehhh

If you've read any of these books leave your thoughts/ reviews in the comments! I'd love to hear what you think :)