Castley Creswell has an abnormal life, living in the middle of the woods with her very religious father, her mother, her two sisters and her three brothers. Castley is seventeen and desperate to make friends and just be a normal teen but her father is insistent that everyone in the world is terrible and that God hates them all, all of them but the Creswells, and that they must do everything they can to please Him and if they ever do anything sinful they have to be locked in ‘Gods Chambers’ and beg for forgiveness. Castley is destined to remain in her family forever, even marry one of her brothers. But what is she supposed to do when all she wants is to have a normal life?
I got this book and I read it pretty quickly; I thought it sounded really original and that the blurb left a lot of mystery about the story that I wanted the answers to so I read the book, but I unfortunately didn’t find it all that engaging.
I think there were too many characters in one family and it was kind of confusing keeping up with all of them and trying to remember which one was which. I also just didn’t like any of them. They were all really annoying and most of them were just plain stupid and I wanted to shout at them in frustration during the book because they were just so blind to the obvious and I didn’t connect with them or care about them because of their stupidity.
I found the book as a whole really creepy, there were so many different creepy elements. Such as marrying your own brother, or hating the whole world and thinking that God only loved you and your family and therefore you weren’t allowed to socialise with anyone or go to after school clubs; the fact that you have to lock yourself in some kind of underground cabin when you do something that’s considered ‘sinful’. I’m not religious and I have nothing against people who are religious, everyone will believe what they want to believe and what they think or have been told is true, and there are probably some things I believe in that other people don’t and that’s fine – but this book was beyond ridiculous, I really hope there aren’t children out in the world that are being abused by their father and actually believing that it’s God’s wish that they get abused like this because that would just be one of the most depressing things in the world, and completely repulsive.
There were certain elements of the book that I really connected with though and that really meant something to me and that improved the book for me. I feel like a very strong element of the book was about growing up and realising who you really are as a person. As a young person I understand that it can be confusing to decide who you really are, what you really want out of life, what you really want to do with your life. In my childhood I have changed my chosen career path so many times I can’t even count because growing up you never really know what you want to do and it will keep changing throughout your whole life probably. I think you’re really lucky if you’ve found something that you’re truly passionate about and that you can see yourself doing for the rest of your life and you can’t even imagine doing anything else. I’m lucky enough to have experienced that passion and I’m pretty set on what I want to do with my life, but then I would have said that ten years ago when I had a completely different career path in mind, and I think in some ways this book really shows you how it’s okay to spend time thinking about who you really are, that you never have to make up your mind because you’ve got the whole rest of your life ahead of you and you can change your mind an infinite number of times, you can experiment with loads of different things and that’s okay.
I think it also shows us that as we grow up we may find that we don’t have as much in common with our family as we once did; maybe you can no longer sit down with your family and watch a film together because everyone likes watching different stuff now; maybe you can no longer sit down and play a board game because some of your siblings don’t like board games anymore or you like different board games now; maybe your siblings have reached that age where they think they’re older and cooler than you and they’re going out with their friends all the time but at the end of the day you’re still their brother or their sister and they still love you and they will always be there for you no matter what because they’re family and you never give up on your family.
So I feel like this book had a really meaningful message amongst all of the craziness and once you noticed that really important message it was like everything else stopped mattering because you’d finally figured out the secret message that was hidden inside the pages.
It was definitely an original book unlike anything I had ever read and it was also really interesting to think about such an extreme social group and the story also intrigued me enough that I was forced to keep reading, the ending was also really satisfying.
I think if you like the sound of this book then you should go for it, why not? You only live once, right? If this review has made you interested then go and get the book, it’s good to know that I interested you! If you’re really properly opposed to religion and you get frustrated when you hear about people’s religious views then I wouldn’t suggest reading this because the book will send you over the edge, I also wouldn’t read this book if you like having really strong likeable characters because this book didn’t really have that.
3/5 stars.
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