Blast From the Past: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Originally published in 1962 by The Viking Press

My edition: the Penguin Modern Classics paperback! I’d never seen this PMC cover until it arrived.

What's it about?

Living in the Blackwood family home with only her sister Constance and her Uncle Julian for company, Merricat just wants to preserve their delicate way of life. But ever since Constance was acquitted of murdering the rest of the family, the world isn’t leaving the Blackwoods alone. And when Cousin Charles arrives, armed with overtures of friendship and a desperate need to get into the safe, Merricat must do everything in her power to protect the remaining family.

In her final, greatest novel, Shirley Jackson draws us into a dark, unsettling world of family rivalries, suspense and exquisite black comedy.

Why now?

This time of year screams for dark, creepy novels and We Have Always Lives in the Castle also boasts of being nice and short which is what I need this month!

The verdict:

It’s hard to hear even a word about Shirley Jackson’s work without a flood of praise and fangirling coming afterwards so I was nervous about diving into We Have Always Lived in the Castle, but now I’ll be joining the legions of fangirls.

I went into this novel knowing very little about the plot or Jackson’s style and themes and it was a bit of a surprise really! This little novel is intense, unsettling and relentlessly compelling. The first half is our narrator Merricat teasing, taunting and leaving drips of information behind her which creates a delicious sense of mystery? Why do the villagers hate the Blackwoods? What happened to the family? Did she do it?

All of these questions were embedded in interactions between sisters Merricat and Constance that were super unnerving and just plain weird actually. The atmosphere of We Have Always Lived in the Castle is electric. It’s tense and cloying and impossible to pull yourself out of. And then Cousin Charles arrives and disrupts the solitary, routine life of the sisters and suddenly everything gets darker, more sinister and the sense of impending doom intensifies. I hated Charles violently. It was so obvious to the reader, and to Merricat, what he was after and it was almost painful to watch him manipulate Constance.

It all came to a dramatic, startling head and I couldn’t turn the pages faster. It almost had a fairytale feel to it, something that would have become the thing of myth and legend in the village. The way Jackson mixes genre is so impressive: mystery, thriller, Gothic, fairytale – even though I’ve only read one of her books, I get the feeling she could have written anything.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle is dark, twisted and utterly brilliant. I loved it and can't recommend it enough. I now want to read everything Shirley Jackson wrote.  

Still not convinced?

- It’s said to be Shirley Jackson’s masterpiece.

- At only 146 pages it’s a quick read; I devoured it in two sittings. 

Sophie

Letterbox Love #115

Letterbox Love is a way to give all of the books I receive for review some exposure. Summaries are taken from the cover, or Amazon/NetGalley/Goodreads in the case of e-books, unless otherwise stated.

Orbiting Jupiter, Gary D Schmidt (e-proof)

A heartbreaking story, narrated by twelve-year-old Jack, whose family is caring for fourteen-year-old Joseph. Joseph is misunderstood. He was incarcerated for trying to kill a teacher. Or so the rumours say. But Jack and his family see something others in town don’t want to.

What's more, Joseph has a daughter he’s never seen. The two boys go on a journey through the bitter Maine winter to help Joseph find his baby – no matter the cost.

This sounds so strange and I can't wait! It's had some really wonderful reviews so far. Thanks Andersen Press and NetGalley!

Yesterday I was invited to go to Macmillan for a lovely Christmas blogger event and these are the books I came home with:

The Thing About Jellyfish, Ali Benjamin (proof)

Suzy is twelve when her best friend, Franny, drowns one summer at the beach. It takes two days for the news to reach Suzy, and it’s not something she can accept: Franny has always been a strong swimmer, from the day they met in swim class when they were just five. How can someone all of a sudden, just no longer be there?

Suzy realises that they must have got it wrong: Franny didn’t just drown, she was stung by a poisonous jellyfish. This makes a lot more sense to Suzy’s logical mind than a random drowning – cause: a jellyfish sting; effect: death.

Suzy’s journey to acceptance is quiet – she resolves to either say something important, or nothing at all. But it’s also bursting with bittersweet humour, heart-breaking honesty, big ideas and small details.

Burning Midnight, Will McIntosh (proof)

Sully is a sphere dealer at a flea market. It doesn’t pay much – Alex Holliday’s stores have muscled out most of the independent sellers – but it helps him and his mum make the rent. No one knows where the brilliant-coloured spheres come from. One day they were just there, hidden all over the earth like huge gemstones. Burn a pair and they make you a little better: an inch taller, skilled at maths, better looking. The rarer the sphere, the greater the improvement – and the more expensive the sphere.

When Sully meets Hunter, a girl with a natural talent for finding spheres, the two start searching together. What they find will change more than just their lives…Because the entire world fights over spheres, but no one knows what their powers are…until now.

The Christmas Star, Eva Ibbotson (paperback)

Snuggle in around the fire and enjoy this collection of three wonderfully festive stories for the whole family by one of the country’s best loved storytellers, illustrated by the award-winning Nick Maland.

In Vicky and the Christmas Angel a young Viennese girl discovers the magic behind her family’s Christmas celebrations.

In The Christmas Star a fortune teller at the local Christmas market changes the lives of one family forever.

The Great Carp Ferdinand is a story about a hero with a difference, as Ferdinand – the carp intended for the Mannhaus family’s Christmas dinner – wins over the household in the lead-up to Christmas.

Thank you so much Macmillan!

Sophie 

Binge, Tyler Oakley

Pages: 303

Publisher: S&S

Release Date: 20^th October 2015

Edition: UK hardback, purchased

From someone who made a career out of over-sharing on the internet, Tyler Oakley has a shocking number of personal mishaps and shenanigans to reveal in his first book: he experienced a legitimate rage blackout in a Cheesecake Factory; he had a fashion stand-off with the White House secret service; he crashed a car in front of his entire high school while wearing his fast food restaurant server’s uniform; he projectile vomited while bartering with a grandmother.

With millions of fans clamouring for more Tyler Oakley, he delivers his best untold, hilariously side-splitting moments with trademark flair in Binge.

I have incredibly mixed feelings about Binge and I don’t really know where to start…

I’m a big fan of Tyler Oakley, and though I haven’t watched his most recent videos, I love his videos too so I was eager to read more about him. And I did learn more about him, sometimes a little too much, but the way Binge was formatted just seemed so very strange. Tyler’s anecdotes and stories and lists that feature in this book have no real order. They’re not chronological and they’re not divided into sections so it felt a little like whiplash. We were thrown from topic to topic, shock to shock and then back again later in the book. It felt like it hadn’t even been passed through structural edits!

Tyler talks a lot about his career and rise to fame on YouTube. He discusses the highlights, of course, but puts a lot of focus on the not so great side of being a YouTube celebrity which was fascinating. The imposition of fans on his life, the stress of all he’s being asked to do, the fear of backlash from fandoms – it’s not something that I imagine is considered very much, even though being a YouTube celebrity is something that lots of people aspire to be now. Tyler was brutally honest about his bad experiences with the One Direction fandom (and the boys themselves) and fans going to unsafe lengths to spot him and invading his personal time but he never insulted anyone or condemned them too harshly; he just shared his experiences.

YouTube and career experience weren’t the only things Tyler shared, however. There is a lot of very personal stuff discussed in Binge and I applaud Tyler for being brave enough to reveal it. He discussed his battles with an eating disorder, coming out, parental divorce, an abusive relationship and horrific break-ups. I can't imagine how reassuring it must be for people suffering or experiencing some of the things Tyler mentioned in Binge and knowing that Tyler Oakley went through the same thing and came out of the other end. That’s going to be invaluable for so many people and that alone makes this book important.

I'm very glad I read Binge, even though I would personally like to restructure the entire thing, and I have even more respect for Tyler Oakley as a person as well as a creator than I did before.

Sophie 

Favourites: November 2015

Dinner with old colleagues

I met up with three of the lovely ladies I used to work with for dinner. I hadn’t seen two of them for nearly a year so it was great to catch up. We gorged on Italian food and deserts we so didn’t need. It’s strange, out of everyone I worked with, the three women I love the most from that job are my mum’s age – go figure. It was also nice to see them and have them talk about mum (she had worked with them all at some point over her 20 years in that business) on the day before the second anniversary of her death. It was much needed and we’ve vowed that it won't be another year before we see each other again!

Bring Me the Horizon at Alexandra Palace

On Saturday 28^th, Bring Me the Horizon (British metal band) played the London gig of their current tour for That’s the Spirit – their fifth album. This gig marked the fourth time I've seen them and they're short of incredible. With a 10,000 strong crowd at Ally Pally, a blinding light show and a super cool, multi-level, video stage, they rocked it. I was so wrapped up in it that I forgot to even attempot a blurry photo... Sadly, we missed the encore as we had to get back to Victoria for the last train (bloody hate trekking to Ally Pally for a gig…), but I loved it all the same. It was also really cool to see Pvris, who were BMTH’s first support, for only their second London show – they were excellent.

Sophie 

Confessions of an Imaginary Friend, Michelle Cuevas

Pages: 168

Publisher: S&S

Release Date: 31^st December 2015

Edition: UK paperback, review copy

Jacques Papier thinks that everyone hates him.

After all, teachers ignore him when he raises his hand, nobody ever picks him for sports teams, and his sister, Fleur, keeps having to remind their parents to set a place for him at the dinner table.

But then Jacques discovers an uncomfortable truth: He is NOT Fleur’s brother, he’s her imaginary friend!

As so begins Jacques’ quest for identity…what do you do when you realise that the only reason you exist is because of someone else’s imagination?

Though Confessions of an Imaginary Friend is short, it makes up for it with heaps of sweetness and thoughtfulness.

First of all, I just love the premise of this. An imaginary friend who doesn’t know he’s imaginary and trying to figure out his place in the world – brilliant. Jacques Papier is a wonderful narrator to bring some complex ideas to the table for younger readers. This novel is actually aimed at a much younger audience that I realised and that I would normally read, but I still enjoyed it.

I really enjoyed seeing how Jacques reflecting on himself translated to Fleur, the girl who he thought was his sister, but is actually the one who imagined him. As Jacques battles with his invisibility and whether he’s real, even though Fleur can see him and he knows other imaginary friends from the support group and department that looks after them all, Fleur begins to think that she’s invisible too. It was very bittersweet.

Confessions of an Imaginary Friend is a sweet and sad exploration of identity and finding your place in the world that will delight kids, and their parents.

Thanks to S&S for the review copy.

Sophie