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Throughout the book there has never once a feeling of hatred or anger that Jeannette expresses in her writing. You can always feel how much Jeannette loved her family. Not only that she always manages to find a way to love and find the good in most things. A perfect example is the Joshua tree. As she first sees it she thought it was weird because of the way it grew. But later on she found a way admire its beauty and wanted to grow her own Joshua tree but make it straight up. But she understands more about its true beauty from her mom. In this quote “One time I saw a tiny Joshua tree sapling growing not too far from the old tree. I wanted to dig it up and replant it near our house. I told Mom that I would protect it from the wind and water it every day so that it could grow nice and tall and straight. Mom frowned at me. "You'd be destroying what makes it special," she said. "It's the Joshua tree's struggle that gives it its beauty.” (pg.26) This perfectly describes how Jeannette was raised and how she grew into something extraordinary. She would have never survived her life without loving her family and take every single thing for granted.

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One of the most attractive qualities of children is innocence, but Jeannette and her sisters and brother lose their childhood innocence. When they are little kids, they were exposed to poverty, starvation, alcoholic father and sexual assault. Jeannette and her siblings have to leave behind their belonging and gather only one important thing when their parents suddenly decide to move to another city. Her father throws out her favorite pet from the car and when Jeannette gets sad and cries her mother asks her to stop crying and says, “Don’t be so sentimental.”(pg.18)
Jeannette is a four years old kid and she was to exposed to use a gun. And she definitely knows how to use it and use it well as you can see in this quote “I'm pretty good with Dad’s pistol, a big black six-shot revolver, and could hit five out of six beer bottles at thirty paces.”(pg.21). This shows that the Walls children have lost their childhood innocence. This image below shows their loss of childhood innocence because of how much they have to leave behind when they always needed to pack up and go.

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Forgiveness is the major theme of this memoir. The author proves over and over again how she holds no bad feelings toward her parents and the horrendous childhood she endured through their neglect. No matter how many times her parents either betray, frustrate, belittle, or scare her half to death, Walls finds some way of turning their actions into deeds of love. She never points fingers at her parents, blaming them for their neglect. Even though she sometimes would like to tell them what she honestly thinks of them, she holds these thoughts to herself and continues to nod her head in their favor. Her mother and father both squander money on themselves, often leaving their children with no food or warm clothes. And still, Walls does not wallow in self pity. She sees who her parents are and moves on, finding solutions for her problems through pure determination to survive. This all goes back in the beginning when she was three, that is how far back she started to forgive her parents. When she is a three year old child and she burns herself because her mother doesn’t take care of her while she is cooking hot dog. When she gets back home after six days hospitalization, her mother is letting her cook again and saying “Good for you, you have got to get right back in the saddle.” (pg.15)  I can't believe how forgiving she is which makes it feel unreal. She can always find a way to forgive her parents because her love for them is greater for them than anyone else's. And this image perfectly describes of how forgiving she is towards her parents, especially towards Rex.

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Hunger floats through this memoir, sometimes so desperately that we begin to feel as if they too were starving. The children seldom have enough food to eat. But it is not just the hunger of the body that is expressed in this memoir. There is also the hunger for affection; the hunger for friends and acceptance; and the hunger for warmth and clean clothes. For God's sakes the lack of money that they needed in order for them to survive in this crazy world they live in. It makes you feel like you just wish that you were there to help the kids out. There are many times that this couldn't have been avoided or that could fill up their hunger if either Rex just stopped drinking or Rose Mary just sold her land. As we found out when reading this quote, "So if Uncle Jim's land is worth a million dollars, that means your land is worth a million dollars." (pg.272) After reading it, we come to the realization that all the times they were hungry, when they had no clothes, no water, and nowhere to live. This could've been avoided if Rose Mary just sold her land. They would have never been going through this hunger if they just sold their land. This leaves everyone reading the book with anger towards the mom for letting her kids experience the hell they have been through. This image below can perfectly describe every time when they have to seek food by dumpster diving. This probably could be the way they looked with lack of clothes they had and not being able to shower.

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Even though during bad times and whatever hell or craziness this family goes through, you can see how loyal they are to each other. More specifically how loyal the kids are with each other and loyal Jeannette is with her father. Growing up Jeannette has always heard a lot of bad things about her family, especially a lot about her father. She never payed attention to what they say because of much she loves Rex. Even during this one time when a kid named Billy Deel started insulting her father. He said "Don't go and try and pretend you're better than me. 'Cause I know your daddy ain't nothing but a drunk like mine." Where her response was " My daddy is nothing like your daddy... When my daddy passes out. He never pisses himself." (pg.83)This shows how loyal she is to her father because of the way she standed up for him even when she knows of what Billy said was true; she never lets someone make fun of her dad like that. Not only that, you can also see how loyal Brian is with his sisters. For example he has helped them many times like when Jeannette and Lori were saving money to escape to New York. Brian helped a little bit so they can escape knowing that he won't be able to go with them. Eventually he does go but during the time he was only thinking about their freedom instead of his. Plus when Jeannette was getting picked on in this quote “The next day when I got to the alley, the Mexican girls were waiting for men. Before they could attack, Brian jumped out from behind a clump of sagebrush…” (pg. 45)  You can see how Brian is willing to fight and protect her sister. He may not be the strongest but he is toughest and will always defend and do anything for his sisters. This image represents their loyalty towards each other. Their promises may often times break but their loyalty for each other will always hold strong.

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This theme occurs a lot throughout the book. Everytime that someone has ever made a promise in this book, has been left unfulfilled and broken. An example of this is during the time when it was Jeannette's Birthday when she asked Rex for a present. She asked him if he could stop drinking for her. Of course he does what her daughter asks and ended up stopped drinking. He was doing so well until later on something pushed him to the edge which made him disappear for a couple of days. When he returned home he was so drunk and ended up in a knife fight with Rose Mary. After almost killing each other, they both started laughing and were relieved that they didn't end up murdering each other. Instead of feeling relieved, Jeannette felt something else instead where you see in this quote "I didn't feel like celebrating. After all he'd put himself through, I couldn't believe Dad had gone back to the booze." (pg.123) You can feel how disappointed Jeannette feels when Rex started drinking again. Rex always makes promises that he whines up breaking. Rex is a perfect example of this theme because he never is able to fulfill his promises to his family even to his favorite daughter. This image below perfectly represents the character Rex is.