The Glass Castle

Stars: 5/5
Author: Jeannette Walls
Subjects: memoir, alcoholic father, dysfunctional family, poverty, homless people, West Virginia, Arizona, Nevada, California, New York
ISBN: 9781439156964
Copyright Year: 2009
Other Comments:
The Glass Castle is a stunning memoir of a dysfunctional family and astonishing optimism and hope.  Jeannette Walls recounts how her parents were - brilliant but unfit to raise children - and how she and her siblings banded together and raised themselves.  Walls gives details of different moves their mother called "adventures", when the bills piled up too high.  She also writes about the horrible conditions of poverty from rats mistaken for opossums to leaking and buckling roofs to armies of termites and roaches.  She also tells of her parents both loving and selfish gestures toward their children and how - in the end - the children left their parents for a better life in New York.  Even after all this, their parents follow them and choose to be homeless just to be near their kids.  This is a memoir of hard work, heartbreak, and ultimately fulfillment.  I loved it - however it's not for the faintest of heart.

Kaffir Boy

Stars: 3.5/5
Author: Mark Mathabane
Subjects: Africa, apartheid, poverty, South Africa, oppression, tennis, gangs
ISBN: 0684848287
Copyright Year: 1986
Other Comments: Kaffir Boy is the autobiography of Johannes (Mark) Mathabane.  The word "kaffir" is of Arabic origin and means "infidel".  It was used as a degrading term by South African whites and is the equivalent of the word "nigger" commonly used in America (paraphrased from the preface).  This non-fiction work is about Mathabane's childhood years up until the age of 18.  This book paints a vivid portrait of the absolute inhumane conditions of apartheid.  From endless poverty to extremely unsanitary conditions to gang wars to overall oppression - Mathabane explains honestly how the minority of white South African citizens ruled over the majority of black natives with an iron fist.  This book was a haunting and devastating read.  I would recommend this to anyone who does not know what apartheid is or has little knowledge of it.  Also, there appears to be a sequel titled Kaffir Boy in America.