I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
Read for: What’s in a Name Challenge – book title with a building in it
Cassandra and her family (sister – Rose, brother, father, step-mother and Stephen – a boy who works for them but is more like family) live in an old castle in the English countryside. Her father once wrote a very celebrated book but hasn’t been able to write anything in some time. The family is struggling financially as a result. A new family takes up residence in a nearby estate and they soon become friends. The new family consists of 2 young men (Simon and Neil) and their mother. Eventually there is one big love tangle. Stephen is in love with Cassandra, Cassandra is in love with Simon, Simon is in love with Rose and proposes. Rose agrees to marry Simon even though most likely she isn’t in love with him. Meanwhile, Cassandra and her brother have a plan to get their father writing again.
The book was definitely entertaining and at times even funny. The ending was surprising (at least for me…maybe other reader’s saw it coming.) but it wasn’t all that satisfying. Overall it was a good read but not as great as I was hoping. The love stories were a little hard to believe. It seemed that characters were able to fall in and out of love pretty randomnly. Cassandra and her sister mention Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters a few times and in comparison to their lives and I think the author was trying to go for that type of story. If that was the case, she failed and I think that’s why I didn’t love this book. I think I was just expecting something a little more from the love story part of it.
