This book put me in such a bad mood it still lasts one day after finishing it, I'm still incredulous at how this could happen with a supposed Wholesome Girlie Book and a Classic.I'm going to go straight for the jugular here: This consists of two disastrous halves that together read like an exercise lesson in how not to copycat British classics.The first half reads like Pride and Prejudice if Lizzie had truly been the golddigger Darcy takes her for and had not just conned Darcy into asking her to...

A horrible, contrived mess of a novel, full of detestable characters and ridiculous stereotypes.

Also, if you're going to have your characters roar with laughter, it's a good idea to provide a suitable reason for this. The characters in this book continually roared and screamed with laughter, but never at anything particularly funny, which made them seem mentally unhinged rather than good-humoured.

The first half of this was like Jane Austen herself descended from the heavens (godlike) and delivered me, personally, a gift.The second half of this is like Jane Austen removed the mask and revealed she was just Some Romance Writer - not to be confused with a good romance writer, of which there are many - and then she also punched me in the stomach.In other words, I suffered unimaginably.Everyone goes ON and ON about this protagonist, Cassandra. “She is the most charming creature in the history...

What a generous caretaker of a novel.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 needs and desires with such swiftness that I felt agreeably anticipa...

Dear I Capture the Castle,What to say, what to say? Hard to put down all the feelings. To put it simply: you did everything right. The characterization like flowers slowly blooming. The story like seasons changing, invisibly but inevitably. The romance made both heartfelt and utterly, often infuriatingly real. The details, oh the details! I was put right into this world and right into Cassandra's head. And the charm! You are such a charming book - so amusing and so sweet-tempered yet with a ...

4+ stars. Recommended if you like historical coming-of-age fiction. I had never heard of I Capture the Castle until a friend gave it an extremely strong recommendation. Dodie Smith is the author of The 101 Dalmatians (the original basis for the Disney movie, and the only reason I was familiar with her name), which I read many years ago and really enjoyed.This 1948 novel is about an intelligent 17 year old girl, Cassandra Mortmain, who lives in semi-genteel but crushing poverty in mid-1930s Engla...

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 walls ...

That's right. I really liked it. And I'm not ashamed to admit it. Now, would you please excuse me while I go read Hemingway and then kill something with my bare hands.

This is going to be the shortest review I've written on this site in a while. The reason I'm going to keep it short 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 is, and would not reflect the fact that it's also funny as hell, charismatic, deliciously eccentric, Austenesque and so utterly charmin...

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...