I adore this book, then I got all mad at the ending, then when I went over it again, I had misread it—the ending is exactly right. Hurray!

Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle is overtly a retelling of Pride and Prejudice except instead of being about either of those things, it’s about genteel poverty and what it’s okay to do to get out of it.

The poverty is no joke in this book. Get ready to appreciate your fridge and pantry, as well as electricity and hot and cold running water. And that closet full of clothes. The characters deal with it, but aren’t about that, really, any more than the Bennets are about being on the edge of homelessness at any moment, if anything happens to Mr. Bennet. It’s huge and central to their lives, but they are about so much more.

Cassandra is one of literature’s best characters. The book is her journals about the time when “Pemberley is let at last,” as they actually joke in the book. Two eligible wealthy young men move into the neighborhood. They actually own the house and castle where Cassandra and her family are failing to pay the rent and going cold and hungry. Quite a setup.

Cassandra’s voice and interpretations of events are what make this a fabulous book.

Other topics broached: We Have Always Lived in the Castle, the podcast Do You Need a Ride?, The Last Word, Castle Full of Trees, probably others.