I Capture the Castle; the Sixpenny book :: Personal Reflection

Personally, I loved this book. It was probably the best book I've ever read, and if not, it's definitely way up there with 'The Hobbit' and 'Lord of the Rings' and other great books.

Some of the reasons I think this book is great are:

1. The narration. The narration in this book was incredible, but not because it sounds professional and fancy; because it sounds honest and realistic. The narrator, Cassandra, narrates incredibly, because she leads you through the book in the most honest way possible. She doesn't hide any secrets from the reader, she explains everything with every last bit of detail possible. And, not only that, but she's very charismatic. In fact, one of the comments on the book says 'This book has one of the most charismatic narrators I've ever met'. And it wasn't just anyone who said this, it was actually another very popular author; J.K. Rowling, the author of the 'Harry Potter' series of books. So, essentially, what I'm trying to say is that this book contains INCREDIBLE narration.

2. The characters. They're just so easy to become attached to. They all have such fascinating and indulging personalities that sometimes you stop and wonder if they were actually real people at some point in time. For example, the way that Stephen was taking older, classical poems and giving them to Cassandra under his name was very genuine and funny, and, not only that, it was something I'm sure people have actually done in the past to impress others. So, this book also gets points for it's great character variety.

3. The setting. Oh, God, I loved reading about that castle.... There was just something about that big old castle that was, well, enticing me to read the book more. Even seeing that castle on the front of the book seemed to perk my interest. And it wasn't just the castle, either. The time setting was perfect. I find olden day life to be very interesting, and a giant old battlemented castle in the 1940's was fit just perfectly to my liking.

4. The author. I know it doesn't really matter who wrote the book, as long as the book is good, but I like the book so much more because of who wrote it. I just love the way she draws from what she does or what she's feeling or what happens to her in order to get the idea for a book. And, also, the way that she writes. She writes with unerring accuracy in regards of the message she's trying to get across. And she always manages to use very interesting words, like 'battlemented' or 'fetching'. I just find that the book is so much better because of who wrote it and the way they wrote it.

5. The setup. I like the way the 'chapters' in the book are set up. Instead of it saying "Chapter 1, 2, 3, etc.", it just shows a line of asterixes (***). But that's more of a scene breaker. The actual 'chapters' are made up of her journal that she's writing in. So, this website, however large it may be, is actually only about one chapter in the book. The book itself is approximately 410 pages long, but the first 'chapter' is actually 82 pages of very fine, narrow print. The chapter setup makes the book very interesting to read. especially right at the very end of the Sixpenny book, where it says "SLAM THE BOOK SHUT". I never could understand the significance of that, I just think it's interesting to have there.

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