25.
The Glass Castle
By Jeannette Walls
Because out of all the dysfunctional family stories,
this one was the instant classic.
In this searing memoir, Walls relates her hardscrabble
childhood with two eccentric—to put it mildly—parents. The
family lived like nomads and, later, in poverty as their father drank and their
mother fell deeper into dysfunction. Walls not only escaped her desperate
situation, becoming a successful writer in New York, but also got out with her
kindness, humor and generosity of spirit intact.
— Dawn Raffel
