Memoir comparison: The Glass Castle and Yakuza Moon

            The first things you can compare between the two memoirs are that both involve childhood hardships and neglect. Both stories have a wrenching bare-bone style type of writing that makes both books incredibly powerful to read. Both memoirs have many heartbreaking moments that will make the reader feel sensitive and will both make the reader feel deeply affected. In  the Glass castle, Jeanette's parents are both very eccentric characters and they are parents society would not label as “normal” the same can be said for Shoko Tendo's parents, even though society in their time did not label them as normal since they are Yakuza family, her parents were actually normal and loving based on Shoko Tendo's description.  Another similarity is that Jeanette and Shoko both have siblings, Jeanette who has one assertive and intelligent older sister, one courageous and strong younger brother, and one fragile adolescent younger sister. While Shoko who has one irresponsible and selfish but caring older sister, and one responsible mature older brother. Both characters are intelligent and the most responsible, taking care of their own families while acting as if they were the parents. Based on this description, you can tell that both character's siblings are different from each other because of the difference in family each character's family circumstances. The first and most obvious difference between the two stories is the setting and cultural difference. Yakuza Moon takes place in Japan, while The Glass castle is takes place in America.   The biggest difference in both respective families is that Jeanette's family was fairly poor and Shoko's family was quite wealthy. The similarity for  each father is that they both neglect their kids because the amount of time each father spend with their children are from less to none, but are both loving and caring, but the big difference is Shoko’s father is more mature, conservative and responsible, while Jeanette’s father is the polar opposite. The same goes for both mothers of the story, while Jeanette’s mother is selfish, irresponsible and child-like, Shoko’s mom is mature, responsible and very devoted to her husband and children. In the end both characters are overall similar, because both had disturbingly abrupt pasts, and ended up becoming authors writing about their lives. In conclusion it does not matter if one’s family is rich or poor, families are to more likely to have constant problems and hardships if they live life abiding aside society’s rules and laws, and not living a “normal” life.