This book put me in such a bad mood that it's still lingering a day after finishing it. I'm still incredulous at how this could happen with a supposedly wholesome girlie book and a classic.I'm going straight for the jugular here: *I Capture the Castle* consists of two disastrous halves that together read like an exercise in how *not* to copy British classics.The first half reads like *Pride and Prejudice* if Lizzie had truly been the gold digger Darcy takes her for, and had not just conned Darcy...

An absolutely dreadful, manufactured mess of a novel, crammed with loathsome characters and absurd stereotypes.Also, if you intend to have your characters roar with laughter, it's generally a good idea to give them a decent reason to do so. The characters in Dodie Smith's *I Capture the Castle* continually roared and screamed with laughter, but never at anything remotely amusing, which made them come across as completely unhinged rather than simply good-humored. If you're looking for honest book...

The first half of "I Capture the Castle" was like Jane Austen herself descended from the heavens (godlike) and personally delivered a gift to me. Then…The second half was like Jane Austen ripped off her mask to reveal she was just Some Romance Writer – and not even a *good* romance writer, of which there are plenty – and then she punched me right in the gut.In other words, I suffered. Unimaginably.Everyone raves about the protagonist, Cassandra. “She is the most charming creature in the history ...

What a generous caretaker of a novel. Seriously, Dodie Smith’s *I Capture the Castle* just *gets* it.If I say that this novel didn't require me to do any work, it sounds like a vague insult, as if I'm saying that the story or the characters were slight, and that's not at all what I mean. I mean that the novel, both through format (a very self-aware narrator's journal) and authorial intent (with a firm eye on the sort of story-telling pedigree that brought her there), anticipated my readerly need...

Dear I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith,What to say, what to say? It's hard to put all my feelings into words. To put it simply: you did everything right. The character development unfolded like flowers slowly blooming. The story progressed like the seasons changing, invisibly but inevitably. The romance felt both heartfelt and utterly, often infuriatingly real. The details, oh, the details! I was immediately transported into this world and right into Cassandra's head. And the charm! You ar...

4+ stars. Recommended if you enjoy historical coming-of-age stories. I’d never heard of *I Capture the Castle* until a friend gave it an **extremely** enthusiastic recommendation. Dodie Smith also wrote *The 101 Dalmatians* (the book that inspired the Disney movie, and the only reason I recognized her name), which I read ages ago and really liked.This 1948 novel follows Cassandra Mortmain, a bright 17-year-old living in a crumbling castle in mid-1930s England. They’re practically broke, but stil...

My name is Cassandra Mortmain, I know it sounds made up, but it’s true. I’m 17 and bright as a button and never been kissed because it’s the 1930s. My family are effortlessly bohemian; we all live in a crumbling castle – oh yes, quite literally! – and we have no money at all, and we have only barely heard of the twentieth century. How poor we are since father stopped earning any money. He used to be a genius, but now he does crosswords. We eat the occasional potato and scrape plaster off the wal...

That's right. I actually really liked it. And I'm not ashamed to admit it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go read Hemingway and then wrestle a bear or something. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith really surprised me, and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a charming read. This is a great book review, if I do say so myself!

This is going to be the shortest review I've written on this site in a while. The reason I'm keeping it brief is because no description could possibly do justice to this quintessentially English coming-of-age story, which ranks among the most pleasant surprises I've had, book-wise. A summary would make it sound slight, trite, and predictable, all of which it technically *is*, but that wouldn't reflect the fact that Dodie Smith's *I Capture the Castle* is also funny as hell, charismatic, deliciou...

With many of my favorite books, I can still remember the person who put a copy in my hands. *Matilda* was given to me for my 8th birthday by my stepdad, the title *Pride and Prejudice* scribbled on a piece of paper and handed to me by my young (must've been straight out of college) 7th grade English teacher—she gave me the paper and sent me to the library to find it, and I still remember sitting in that classroom taking in the opening page with grand delight…I hadn't ever heard of *I Capture the...