2013 has been a year filled with many great books and reading experiences. From books like Wonder, Divergent and A Long Way Gone, articles that having inspired me to think about powerful issues like Book Banning and Social Justice. But there is one book in particular that has touched me in a way that none of the other books have, which is why it makes the title of my favorite book of 2013. This book is “The Glass Castle” by Jeanette Walls. This highly controversial work of literature is an autobiography, describing the difficult life of Jeanette Walls. She has too deal with so much at such a young and has the mind of a grown woman when she is only ten. Her emotional journey written in decisive detail sparked many questions for me, and changed the way I look at the world. 

         Jeanette Walls has strife and hardship through most of her life. The most frequent comes in the form of her parents. Her father is an unreliable daydreamer, teaching the kids their life lessons through built up fantastical lies about his adventures. Jeanette and her sibling learn that nothing their father says is ever what it seems. They thrive on daydreams of a better life. A life where they don’t have to constantly move, where they don’t have to fret about expenses because their parents don’t care and a life where they have to barely scrape by. Jeanette looks upon the world in a way I greatly admire. She never sees things as hard as they are; she never holds grudges and constantly pushes away the past and strides toward the future. Her optimism is inspiring. Jeanette pulls everything from every experience she has, longing to make the world better. There is a part of the book where she falls very ill, she says “I think the world is a bit like me. It’s very tired, and has an aching deep inside. I need fixin and so does the world, I’m going to do like the doctor and patch it up the best I can.” That is what she has grabbed from those experiences, a little bit of tape, a few nails and a hammer, or in other words, her tools to make the world a little bit of a better place.

         “The Glass Castle” is a book that has sparked a huge question for me, one that I think about in many important aspects of my life. This question is why do many less fortunate people have more compassion than the wealthy? As I know this does not apply to everyone but I have noticed this in many situations. It makes me wonder and I hope it makes you wonder, why is this? Is it because the less fortunate have more reason to be exceptionally grateful? Or is it that they have more ammunition to make a change, and make sure that other don’t live the same way as they had? All that I know is that this book has created some incredible waves of thought, I greatly recommend it and hope you can see between the lines of book and find the greater meaning.