The Memory Keepers's Daughter

by Kim Edwards

On a winter night in 1964, Dr. David Henry is forced by a blizzard to deliver his own twins. His son, born first, is perfectly healthy. Yet when his daughter is born, he sees immediately that she has Down's Syndrome. Rationalizing it as a need to protect Norah, his wife, he makes a split-second decision that will alter all of their lives forever. He asks his nurse to take the baby away to an institution and never to reveal the secret.

I loved the first 200 pages of this book but after a while I thought that it got very depressing. The ending was not very satisfying either. However, everyone else I know that has read it really liked it - so give it a try and let me know what you think.

The Glass Castle: a memoir

by Jeannette Walls

Walls opens her memoir by describing looking out the window of her taxi, wondering if she's "overdressed for the evening" and spotting her mother on the sidewalk, "rooting through a Dumpster." In The Glass Castle, Walls chronicles her childhood with two eccentric, nomadic parents--Rose Mary, her frustrated-artist mother, and Rex, her brilliant, alcoholic father. She and her siblings survive an life of neglect and abuse with remarkably little bitterness. In fact, it is clear that despite her upbringing, she loves her parents and they love her.