-
Jeanette is cooking hot dogs alone at age 3 and catches fire. When she foes to the hospital, she has to have a skin graft. When sheś healing, her dad sneaks her out of the hospital before paying in his ¨Rex Walls skedaddle¨
-
The walls family move around the southwest a lot,from California to Arizona, and Leave whenever dad's debt piles too high. During one of the moves the kids are locked in a U-haul and the doors open while they're driving.
-
When their money runs out in Battle Mountain, Rosemary is forced to get a job teaching, which she hates. Rex also steals all of her paychecks. Life is still relatively happy in Battle Mountain.
-
The family learns that their kids could be taken away from them, and quickly move away to Phoenix, to Jeanette's late grandmother's house, which is big and different. It eventually starts deteriorating because the Walls make no effort to keep it nice.
-
Jeanette asks her father to stop drinking for her 10th birthday. The family goes on a trip to the desert, and the car breaks down. Rex and Rosemary decide to go to West Virginia to live with Rex's mother, Erma in Welch.
-
Erma is a horrible woman who locks the kids in the basement and forbid them to laugh. When Rex and Rosemary leave to get some things from their Phoenix home, Jeanette walks in on Erma molesting Brian. Lori and Jeanette realize that Dad was probably molested by Erma too.
-
The Walls are kicked out of Erma's home, and buy their own property, which doesn't have running water. They dig the foundation for the glass castle, but eventually the big hole just becomes a place where they throw their trash.
-
after having to join her dad in a pool scam, she narrowly avoids being raped. In order to earn her own money, she gets a job at a jewelry store. One day, she steals a watch, but feels guilty about it and returns it the next day.
-
when Jeanette is 17, she graduates early and moves to New York, where she gets an internship on a newspaper. Eventually, Rosemary and Rex also drive to Now York and try to stay in their kid's apartments, but in the end they just squat in an abandoned building.
-
Years after her dad's death, her family gathers for thanksgiving to reminisce together. Jeanette reflects on the hardships of her childhood and believes that while it was hard and her parents were horrible, she wouldn't be who she was today without them.
