The 305 Greatest Books - #201: I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

The next up on my reading of the 305 greatest books is I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. The book can be found on the BBC Book List.

Although I have never heard of this book, or the author before, I found out the author, Dodie Smith, had also written The Hundred and One Dalmatians, from which the Disney movie was based on. So I thought, ok, this could be good. The premise is that a family had moved into a long abandoned castle and were severely down on their luck. The book is written from the first person perspective of Cassandra Mortmain in the guise of diary entries. Her family all live within this castle, James, her father who is a world famous author having written one breakthrough novel but hasn't been able to write anything since. Her step-mother, Topaz, is a model who hasn't had much luck since the castle is far away from London and there isn't much work without travel. Her sister Rose, who really is useless. She apparently has a brother who is hardly mentioned, and a foster ward, Stephen, who is in love with Cassandra. And while I had assumed the book would be about this castle and perhaps their refurbishment of it, that is not in the least what the book was about. It is about their relationship with their new American landlords, who recently inherited the property, upon which the castle sits. While this book would be considered a character study, it is a rather boring one. I truly didn't care about most of the characters. And I felt no desire to go back to the book upon putting it down. I didn't hate the book, I just felt no desire to read it. It was meh. Even as the story ends on a "cliffhanger", you can see where the story is likely to go and be fine with the resolution. The writing is nice and the narrator does do a good job of keeping the listener informed but there is nothing compelling about the book. Overall it's ok. Nothing to write home about though.