“The Silver Star” by Jeannette Walls – The Ever-Dysfunctional World

Though most of us have a happy childhood, we slowly but surely figure out that the world isn’t nearly as pretty as it’s made out to be. Many of us living in peaceful countries do not even realize how lucky we are to be relatively sheltered from the cruelties Man can inflict on Man. 

There are others, however, who make this discovery very early and in a brutal fashion, and that’s the theme, or at least one of the main ones, in Jeannette Walls’ The Silver Star. 

It follows the life of two sisters, Bean, twelve years old, and Liz, fifteen years old. One day, their quirky and irresponsible mother leaves on a soul-searching trip, leaving the girls with about a month or two worth of money and supplies.

Naturally, the girls aren’t crazy about the arrangement, but they make the best of it, until one day they see a police car in front of their home, and simply decide to take off for Virginia in search of their mother. 

Upon arriving there, they make the acquaintance of their uncle Tinsley who lives in a crumbling mansion that belonged to the family for generations, they learn about Bean’s father, the reasons as to why their mother left, and more importantly, they start working for the abusive Jerry Maddox, the foreman of the town mill.

Having read The Glass Castle by Jeannette, I have to say that my expectations may have been set a bit too high, but that is not to say this book doesn’t have its own merits to speak of. 

The Silver Star by Jeannette Walls (Book cover)
Though the storyline itself won’t keep you flipping the pages, the characters themselves will. Throughout their adventure Bean and Liz meet plenty of young and old people, each one having a story to tell, many of them being centered on overcoming suffering and finding redemption. 

On the whole, this is a coming-of-age book that isn’t only about the nastiness of this world, but also about how you should overcome it, how you can learn to love life despite all of its flaws, how you can rise up in the face of injustice and abuse. 

I had the feeling that the book wasn't about a story, but rather a vehicle to explore concepts, ideas and share them with the world. If you read books for reasons other than the entertainment factor and find stories about dysfunctional families interesting, then I’m sure you’ll have a good time reading this one.

Jeannette Walls (Author)

Jeannette Walls


Jeannette Walls is a former gossip columnist for MSNBC.com and a reputed American author whose magnum opus (so far at least) turned out to be The Glass Castle, a memoir of her own childhood. It sold over 2.7 million copies and has received the Christopher Award, the American Library Association's Alex Award, as well as the Books for Better Living Award.

Her fascination with reminiscing of the past didn't end there, as she came back in 2009 in full force to publish Half Broken Horses, based on her grandmother's life.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

“The Locked Door” by Freida McFadden – Roots of a Lost Innocence

Image
  Freida McFadden has been quietly writing some exciting and original thrillers in her spare time from being a practicing physician, and The Locked Door is one of her latest offering in the genre.  It tells the story of Nora, a surgeon and daughter of a serial killer now in jail, who sees her life assaulted from the dark as someone begins to recreate her father's work with the exact same signature.
Read more

“The Lost Colony” by A.G. Riddle – A New Home Among the Stars

Image
A.G. Riddle's Long Winter Trilogy Series is one many of us will remember for the amazing story it brings of humanity's last stand against an overwhelming enemy in times of hopelessness. In The Lost Colony , the third book in the series, we follow James and Emma on their own respective struggles as humanity tries to settle itself on a new planet with an unseen danger none could have foreseen.
Read more

“Winter World” by A.G. Riddle – Ice Age from the Void

Image
A.G. Riddle is a true literary explorer seeking to push humanity to its limits and beyond, setting them on a desperate collision course with something beyond its understanding in Winter World . With a sudden ice age dawning on humanity entire swathes of land become uninhabitable and people begin dropping like flies, with anarchy reigning supreme. Looking to the stars for a miraculous solution, the remnants of humanity find a massive mysterious object floating near Mars ...whatever it is, our civilization's hopes of survival rest entirely in its hands.
Read more

“The Girl on the Stairs” by Barry Ernest – The Small Thorn you Can’t Ignore

Image
Girl on the Stairs , by Barry Ernest and with a foreword written by David Lifton, is an exploration of one specific aspect of the JFK assassination. More precisely, it looks into what a little girl by the name of Victoria Adams saw on that day while standing in the staircase of the Texas School Book Depository, where Lee Harvey Oswald was supposedly making his escape.  Actually, it is more about what she didn’t see than what she did see. Victoria was on the staircase Oswald supposedly used, at the exact same time he supposedly used it. If he were to be there, even the little girl she was, Victoria would have noticed a nervous man quickly running down the stairs. However, she says that on that day, she was alone there, with nobody to be found, especially Oswald.
Read more

“Three Comrades” by Erich Maria Remarque – The Other Side of the Barricade

Image
The two World Wars have been documented, discussed and depicted from virtually every perspective imaginable, ranging from small children caught in a crossfire all the way the leaders of each country. However, it seems that here is a startlingly small amount of attention dedicated to the small hiatus period between the two wars, a time during which many changes came to pass in Germany in a very short amount of time.
Read more