Cassandra Mortmain is the daughter of a once-famous writer who suffers a severe, permanent writer's block, and has the deep desire to become a writer herself. Though seventeen, Cassandra has the charisma of a writer much older than her, and the reader of her three notebook journals feels that sense of coming-of-age as she hones her writing skills superbly.

Any writer (or reader) who can sit still long enough to read through the unbosomings of a girl at seventeen years of age, living through poverty, lonliness, love, and family will love this book.

The quotes that Dodie Smith inquired with Cassandra's diary, such as 'writers are liable to become callous' or 'I find that sitting in a place where you have never sat can be inspiring' were very enjoyable. I adored the originality of the book, the style, and the interaction of the characters, which were all very down-to-earth and lovable. Dodie Smith cleverly wrote the book as though she WAS a seventeen-year-old writer intending to capture a castle with words, faced difficult fronts with her sister and her sister's love life, and so on. There is inclusion of famous writers and interesting facts about them, such as Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte. I loved all of this.

The plot of this book is rather slow and nothing especially exciting happens, for those who enjoy reading books as plotful as the Harry Potter books (J. K. Rowling has a review on this book), which was a bit disappointing as I was expecting something marvellous, but it was still a wonderful book. (The lack of extreme plot may be owing to it is a 'diary', not a 'novel'.)

To read more of Cassandra Mortmain (or even Dodie Smith)'s works would have been lovely, but as there are none, that is impossible. I still wish I could, though.... It was an amazing read.

I felt inspired to keep a journal of my own, and now log a diary on an almost daily basis.

Dodie Smith was an unsuccessful actress and dated a married man for quite sometime, but soon fell in love with a bachelor and they moved to the States for a while. She had Dalmation dogs that inspired her '101 Dalmations', a script which is well-known. Smith began writing 'Castle' while in America out of her homesickness for England, but soon returned to her home country and finished her novel, including Americans in the story out of respect of her three best friends who were Americans.

It is a book that will stick in my brain for a long time, to be sure. As an aspiring, young writer, I particularly enjoyed this book.

I cannot think of a reason why anyone should not read this.

Enjoy the Cassandra Mortmain experience!

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Created Jul 07, 2005 at 1:58pm • Submit your own review...