Our book group choice for April 2023 is The Glass Castle by Jeannette 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.
Discussion Questions for The Last Castle
- Did you feel the book was an accurate retelling of Jeannette’s childhood, or stylised recollections?
- What other books, stories or films did The Glass Castle remind you of?
- Did the book paint a good picture of a life lived on the periphery in America at that time?
- How bad were the parents? Was one worse than the other at parenting? Did the children benefit at all from their unusual upbringing?
- Would you have enjoyed this book more had it been fiction rather than an autobiography?
- How did the film compare with the book?
- What does the ‘Glass Castle’ symbolise?
- What was the role of storytelling in the book?
- What did you think of the ending?
- To whom would you recommend this book?
Individual Ratings
Sue's Rating 
EmmaTs Rating 
Kelby's Rating
Baljit's Rating
Catherine's Rating
Willow's Rating
DKB's Rating