I Capture the Castle

The plot of Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle is decent enough, but what elevates it is the distinctive voice of 17-year-old Cassandra Mortmain (“I write this sitting in the kitchen sink”), an intelligent and precocious girl who has moved with her family to Godsend Castle to begin a new life. Cassandra is one of the great modern fictional narrators — timid and clumsy, but also perceptive and honest (the local pastor describes her as a combination of “Jane Eyre and Becky Sharp, a thoroughly dangerous girl”). The book was made into a 2003 film.