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Loading... I Capture the Castle (1948)by Dodie Smith
  
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 mattorsara | Aug 11, 2022 |  I really don't get why so many people love this book so much.... I see other reviewers comparing it to Anne of Green Gables and Jane Austen and it is nothing like either of them. It is the diary of Cassandra, a teenage girl living with her older sister, younger brother, mercurial starving-artist father, and eccentric starving-artist stepmother. They are a loving family, although the father is emotionally distant and a little scary, and the children are basically left to their own devices. They rent a crumbling castle. The castle is inherited by new owners, two dashing young brothers, who come to visit and naturally it's a romance so you know where things go from there. Cassandra describes everything in excruciating detail, so the book moves very slowly. The pace picks up in the second half, although by then it feels like Cassandra is bored of writing everything in her journal so while inconsequential events in the first half get long, detailed descriptions, the monumental events of the second half go by in a blur. I guess that in some ways that shows character growth or something, but it makes for tedious reading. (  ) Gwendydd | Apr 24, 2022 | A really lovely book, that I never would have read had it not been a book club suggestion. It’s funny and moving and sweet without ever being cloying. Cassandra is a wonderful narrator and I suspect I’ll be hearing her voice for some time to come. (  ) whatmeworry | Apr 9, 2022 | A little gem. ( ) Neilatkallaroo | Apr 7, 2022 | I love this book! It reminds me a lot of Anne of Green Gables, albeit a more modern, mid-20th century version. The main character Cassandra loves nature and literature; she has a kind heart and sees the best in people; she's a fierce romantic but she is also makes shrewd, sensible observations on things. The book is presented as Cassandra's journal, and her observations and musings are so delightful to read that the plot actually don't matter as much for me. Cassandra's family of 5 (or 6, depending on whether you count the orphaned servant) live in poverty in a run-down castle that they haven't paid the rent of for the past 3 years. They lack in all material things; actually I think they are starving. Then two rich, young gentlemen became their neighbor, and they became friends with Cassandra and Cassandra's beautiful older sister. It sounds like a good setup for romance between the gentlemen and the two sisters, but the book is actually less about romance and more about Cassandra developing a deeper understanding of life. Throughout the book Cassandra experienced beauty of nature, music, and material things, imagined a lot, asked questions about love and life, enjoyed improvement in her material living conditions, understood her father a little better, and had a taste of what it means to be in love. ( ) CathyChou | Mar 11, 2022 |
 This book was such a wonderful, enchanting and unpredictable read that by the end of it I felt like I almost was Cassandra, since her confessions, recordings and thoughts in her journals gave me a thorough insight into her. I also loved how the sections of the book were arranged in differently priced notebooks, which really demonstrated the progression of the story It feels, reading it now, as if this is the story that every romantic comedy Hollywood has ever made has been trying to tell. And when we come towards the end of the book and a marriage proposal and happily-ever-after storyline seems to be in the offing, I was worried we were going to stray into that territory. But Smith is too good a writer, Cassandra too interesting a person to settle for this. Is contained inHas the adaptation
A novel of an eccentric and impoverished English family whose home is a ruined 14th century castle. The story is presented in the form of a diary by the family's teen daughter. No library descriptions found. 
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.912 — Literature English {except North American} English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1901-1945LC ClassificationRatingAverage: (4.11)
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Wikipedia in English
3
Anyway, this review is about I Capture the Castle, written in the form of seventeen year old Cassandra Mortmain’s diary. It is cute, light-hearted and completely predictable. When I read books such as this one, I always wonder if my younger self would have been enchanted, if she would have been thrilled by the idea of the castle and its avant garde inhabitants. Might be a book that requires finding at just the right moment in life to be loved. Not loved, but liked, for me, so 3-stars.
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