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From Publisher's Weekly

Starred review from January 17, 2005
Freelance writer Walls doesn't pull her punches. She 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." Walls's parents—just two of the unforgettable characters in this excellent, unusual book—were a matched pair of eccentrics, and raising four children didn't conventionalize either of them. Her father was a self-taught man, a would-be inventor who could stay longer at a poker table than at most jobs and had "a little bit of a drinking situation," as her mother put it. With a fantastic storytelling knack, Walls describes her artist mom's great gift for rationalizing. Apartment walls so thin they heard all their neighbors? What a bonus—they'd "pick up a little Spanish without even studying." Why feed their pets? They'd be helping them "by not allowing them to become dependent." While Walls's father's version of Christmas presents—walking each child into the Arizona desert at night and letting each one claim a star—was delightful, he wasn't so dear when he stole the kids' hard-earned savings to go on a bender. The Walls children learned to support themselves, eating out of trashcans at school or painting their skin so the holes in their pants didn't show. Buck-toothed Jeannette even tried making her own braces when she heard what orthodontia cost. One by one, each child escaped to New York City. Still, it wasn't long before their parents appeared on their doorsteps. "Why not?" Mom said. "Being homeless is an adventure." Agent, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh.

From AudioFile Magazine

Jeannette Walls's honest and straightforward narration of her memoir unfolds like a fictional cliffhanger. Her childhood stories are humorous and awe inspiring, while her tone becomes appropriately sober and sometimes angry when she recounts her teenage experience. Her alcoholic father's inability to keep a job and her artist mother's aversion to work mired the family with four children into extreme poverty, yet they were taught positive values and given a literary and scientific education. But listening to the final chapters is tedious, perhaps because Walls tells less about herself (a casual mention of her two husbands) and repeats much of what we already know about her homeless but intellectual parents. Still, this audiobook about child survival and success offers gems of insight. K.P. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine