Cassandra does grow up during the year-long course of the novel, and the end, while somewhat overwrought with soap opera machinations, gives me hope she and her family will get through this and start taking care of each other again, but I've got a lingering uneasiness about the family dynamics. Her father shoves her against a wall and doesn't even apologize, and neither he nor Cassandra seem aware he's done anything wrong. This is not a sweet little pastoral look at the English countryside like I expected -- the "we're poor, but it's fun!" approach -- instead, it hides a sort of secret viciousness beneath the jovial front. Here we have a potential recipe for a comedy of manners, a farce, a TV soap opera or even a Wodehouse-ian extravaganza. The narrative could have easily slid into any one of these genres and we would have had a mediocre novel. The fact that it does not happen is due to the consummate mastery of Dodie Smith over her medium, in keeping the voice of the teenage narrator so consistent and endearing throughout. Cassandra starts out as the sweetest child who conducts a diary which she writes through speed-writing. I found this very entertaining because we get to be inside a 17-year-old girl's mind and see things from her perspective. Cassandra is quite naïve, but she is also so adorable that you can't help but fall in love with her. The same goes for her family and Stephen who was my favourite character. Every time I meet someone who also loves I Capture the Castle, I know we must be kindred spirits.” —from the new foreword by Jenny Han, the New York Times bestselling author of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before.

So he ought, considering how rich he is,” said Topaz. “But I dislike sitting for him because he only paints my head. Your father says that the men who paint me nude paint my body and think of their job, but that Macmorris paints my head and thinks of my body. And it’s perfectly true. I’ve had more trouble with him than I should care to let your father know.” Stephen is lighting the lamp. In a second now, the rosy glow will have gone from the kitchen. But lamplight is beautiful, too. I mean, it’s all very upper class white people problems. Oh no, we can’t afford our castle. Oh no, Rose is behaving in a socially awkward manner to an American. Oh no, we’re all in love with the wrong person.On the word God: "It's merely shorthand for where we come from, where we're going, and what it's all about."

Rather uneven and underwhelming for me, swinging as a pendulum between a kind of Jane Austen marriage focussed love triangle story and a children bookThis is not even my sometimes-bias against romance showing. (Except okay maybe it is a little bit.) But in this book we go from a quirky ragtag family living in a dilapidated CASTLE in the English COUNTRYSIDE to...unrequited love. And sisterly hate. And family separation. And heartbreak and betrayal and sorrow and a whole lot of other things. Obligingly, Rose convinces herself that she is love with the eldest of the brothers, Simon, and sets about wooing him; eventually, he proposes and showers wealth down on the Mortmain family.

The first part of the novel is written in a sixpenny notebook with a pencil stub. It progresses to a shilling notebook and finally to a two-guinea one, written with a pen. We started with a precocious teenager in March, at the beginning of spring: we leave the story with her standing on the threshold of womanhood as the autumn leaves start falling. We both prayed hard, Rose the much longest — she was still on her knees when I had settled down ready to sleep. “That’ll do, Rose,” I said at last. “It’s enough just to mention things, you know. Long prayers are like nagging.” I Capture the Castle was a disappointment. The blurb had lead me to believe that I was going to experience the pleasures of living in a beautiful castle, steeped in history, with a charming story weaving in perfectly with that castle, lead by our narrator, Cassandra. Unfortunately, that isn't what I experienced. There was a lot I didn't enjoy about this book, but I'll start with the positive.The arrival of wealthy American family, the Cottons, who move into nearby Scoatney Hall, thus becoming landlords to Cassandra and her family, brings about much excitement for the Mortmain’s. And so we witness a young girl’s coming of age as she falls in love for the first time and encounters various rites of passage with both sharp wit and a level head. I wish I knew of a way to make words flow out of father. Years and years ago, he wrote a very unusual book called Jacob Wrestling, a mixture of fiction, philosophy and poetry. It had a great success, particularly in America, where he made a lot of money by lecturing on it, and he seemed likely to become a very important writer indeed. But he stopped writing. Mother believed this was due to something that happened when I was about five. Anyway, Topaz did the comforting far better than I could have done, as I am never disposed to clasp people to my bosom. She was most maternal, letting Rose weep all over the orange velvet tea-gown, which has suffered many things in its time. Rose will be furious with herself later on, because she has an unkind tendency to despise Topaz; but for the moment they are most amicable. Rose is now putting away her ironing, gulping a little, and Topaz is laying the table for tea while outlining impracticable plans for making money—such as giving a lute concert in the village or buying a pig in installments.