#63 Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls. Did you read The Glass Castle? It was good, but one of the most disturbing books I have read. Jeannette Walls takes the reader back to her Grandmother, Lily's, life. This woman survives tornadoes, droughts, floods, the Great Depression, and personal tragedy. She goes from a dugout and breaking horses to Catholic boarding school in Santa Fe. She rides horseback 500 miles across Arizona to her first teaching job at fifteen, goes to Chicago where she is a maid and is married to a crum-bum, goes back out West to teach, remarries, gets a college degree, and learns to fly an airplane. Not all in that order, but those are some of the highlights. She is straight talking, hardworking, and resourceful. She raises two children with her husband, Big Jim, on a gigantic ranch in Arizona. One of these children is Jeannette Walls' mother, Rose Mary Smith Walls (one half broke horse) who ended up eating out of a New York City dumpster in The Glass Castle.

This story of Jeannette's grandmother had so much humor and adventure and hope, unlike The Glass Castle. It also reminded me of my dear friend, Rebecca, who lives in New Mexico. I couldn't put the book down and spent each spare moment reading. I really liked the spunk and spirit of the story.