I Capture the Castle (Book Review)

I Capture the Castle was an impulse buy but after finishing it yesterday I could not recommend more that you go out and impulsively buy it yourself.  I bought the book last afternoon and could not put it down until I had finished it at 2 in the morning. And as everyone knows, the formula for new book + avid reader = 3 cups of coffee the next morning at work.

Set in 1930s England, I Capture the Castle tells the captivating story of a 17 year old girl, Cassandra, who decides to capture the next several months of her life in a journal or two. She paints a frank and delightful portrait of her sister and brother, as well as her writer father and beautiful step-mother in their daily lives in the run-down castle that they had leased years ago. Soon after, their lives change when an American family moves next door and her sister, Rose, decides she wants to marry the oldest brother.

The next six months are exciting and full of novelty as Cassandra grows up and falls in love, all the while doing her best to keep the family together and to remain ‘brisk’ with Stephen, her loyal friend who is desperately in love with her. Interwoven throughout the novel are the struggles her father goes through as he attempts to top the success he reached with his first book, though he suffers from a good deal of writers block and some apparent insanity.

Our narrator relates the entire book with charm and wit and a good deal of conscious naïveté. The ways she thinks, writes, and acts are quirky and yet relatable in all the best ways. All in all, I Capture the Castle is a thoroughly enjoyable read so if you appreciate unusual characters, the English countryside, and castles, don’t wait to grab this book.