The Silver Star

by Jeannette Walls
Hennepin County Library audiobook 7 discs
read by the author
genre: realistic historical fiction

Oh my! I thought this might be a "lighter" / "easier" book than her memoir or the stories of her grandmother's life . . . not so much. Walls has an amazing gift of storytelling!

Jerry Maddox - yuk! Awful person! He creeps me out! Bank accounts - don't trust him! Good girl, Jean! Get your pay in cash. (Made me think of Financial Peace University. Grin.)

Historic background, opinion vs fact, Maddox is a slimeball! I had such a strong visceral reaction to the story that I had to stop the CD at times. I simply couldn't keep listening!

"There was only one thing to do. I had to kill Jerry Maddox." Uh-oh . . . I know how you feel, but this isn't a great plan.

The trial was awful! Even worse than I was expecting!

Love love love Miss Jarvis providing a safe haven in her classroom for all the "misfits" . . . gathering up the outcasts. She's my kind of teacher!

Loved the emu roundup!

So intense! Maddox / justice / emus home / heard a bear . . .

From Goodreads:
It is 1970 in a small town in California. “Bean” Holladay is twelve and her sister, Liz, is fifteen when their artistic mother, Charlotte, takes off to find herself, leaving her girls enough money to last a month or two. When Bean returns from school one day and sees a police car outside the house, she and Liz decide to take the bus to Virginia, where their widowed Uncle Tinsley lives in the decaying mansion that’s been in Charlotte’s family for generations.

An impetuous optimist, Bean soon discovers who her father was, and hears stories about why their mother left Virginia in the first place. Money is tight, and the sisters start babysitting and doing office work for Jerry Maddox, foreman of the mill in town, who bullies his workers, his tenants, his children, and his wife. Liz is whip-smart--an inventor of word games, reader of Edgar Allan Poe, nonconformist, but when school starts in the fall, it’s Bean who easily adjusts, and Liz who becomes increasingly withdrawn. And then something happens to Liz in the car with Maddox.

Half Broke Horses: a True-Life Novel

by Jeannette Walls
Hennepin County Library audioCDs 8 discs
genre: realistic fiction based on truth . . . family relationships

Walls, the author of Glass Castles, has chosen to tell her grandmother's story as though her grandmother is telling it herself. Interesting choices . . . it would be even more interesting to know how accurate her view is. Certainly, the details are believable and engaging. Lily's perspective on life and parenting (and education) are frank and a little abrasive. This is a well-written, engaging story. It almost makes me want to go back and re-read Glass Castles. I remember being horrified by her parents and their destructive choices. It's interesting to learn about Rosemary's childhood and where she came from as well as her courtship with Rex.

The Glass Castle

by Jeannette Walls
Chaska H.S. paperback, 288 pages

This is our next school book club title. I finished it with tears streaming down my face. Though Walls makes a point of not blaming her parents, this book made me so sad. It's great that she and her siblings have turned out okay, but their parents were selfish and irresponsible. It saddened me and it will be interesting to have our discussion on this book!

The book is extremely well-written. Her prose is beautiful and evocative.