Book Review: I Capture the Castle

Quickies
3 out of 5
Recommended for: anyone who likes chick-flicks and British drama
Categories: Brit lit, writing you don't meet every day, humor, reader-friendly

Synopsis
I Capture the Castle tells the story of seventeen-year-old Cassandra and her family, who live in not-so-genteel poverty in a ramshackle old English castle. Here she strives, over six turbulent months, to hone her writing skills. She fills three notebooks with sharply funny yet poignant entries. Her journals candidly chronicle the great changes that take place within the castle's walls, and her own first descent into love. By the time she pens her final entry, she has "captured the castle"-- and the heart of the reader-- in one of literature's most enchanting entertainments.

Plot
The thing to focus on in this book, I have discovered, is not the plot. If you focus on the plot, you may be sorely disappointed with Cassandra at the end. It's not fair that such a witty, gifted, original and spontaneously real and human girl like Cassandra doesn't have a plot that reads more eloquently than a typical chick-flick love triangle.
Her circumstances are certainly nothing but original. She's living in a crumbling old castle on a forty-year's lease with a riddle of a father, an artist's model {and fascinatingly sensible} stepmother, a rather ordinary {but rather funny} sister and a brother who becomes more and more likable as the book progresses. 
And Stephen. 
One cannot overlook Stephen {despite his overlook-ability} even though he makes about as much sense as an ocean liner in a desert.  
Her life is one of extreme "genteel" poverty. She can hardly scrape up enough paper to write out her journal and there seem to be scraping and darning and skimping at every turn.
Thankfully, Cassandra is blessed with a sense of humor and a knack for remembering chapter-long conversations which she can then record in her journal days later without dropping a word. 
It's the writing that makes this book what it is. 
Without Cassandra's inordinately amusing reflections on everything from bathing on roast platters to white-clad, fur-robed jaunts to London, this book would be a dismal failure. Such ludicrous situations and outlandish conditions couldn't possibly be pulled off without the pragmatic, off-hand descriptions from the heroine's gifted pen.
However, despite her best writing, even Cassandra cannot quite make up for the lack of depth in the plot when it hits its last chapters.  
As one of my friends put it, it's a "well-written bit of fluff".

Likes
The writing - obviously. Any book that starts out "I write this while sitting in the kitchen sink" and proceeds to uphold that level of creativity and spontaneity throughout should not be merely left unread.

Surprisingly, it's pretty clean. Aside from some kissing, occasional language, and sporadic mention of nudity (Cassandra's stepmother is, as already mentioned but now reiterated, an artist's model), I Capture the Castle is pretty innocent and carefree. Rather hard to believe when the movie is rated R, but Hollywood sometimes has different ideas concerning the spirit of a book.

I just loved the sheer craziness of the story. It is so erratic and so very British. Cassandra's honesty and bluntness about everything is engaging and easy to relate to. She's one of the best characters I've met within the realms of a book in a long time.

Dislikes
I was so disappointed with how the book ended. I know this probably isn't a common impression, but I thought that the book degenerated plot-wise as it went on instead of building to an ending that justified its marvelous beginning.

Okay, am I also the only one who wondered about Stephen? He seemed so...insipid. And it didn't help that the author either intentionally or unintentionally turned him out to be such a to-die-for guy that you almost didn't like him because of it.
However, I did appreciate his strength of character. He was rather sweet in an awkward, poetry-stuttered manner.

Conclusion
Ever since I heard that line "I write this while sitting in the kitchen sink", I've wanted to meet Cassandra Mortmain. Anyone who has the guts to write in a sink is bound to be a good friend for as long as a book lasts.
And, shoot. Green arms and Midsummer Eve dances and crumbling plot notwithstanding, she was.

Till next time,