Read this when
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
When the whole town hates you, staying home forever starts to look like a plan. Merricat has thoughts. 🏰
Who it's for
Merricat narrates in a voice both childlike and fierce, and her fear of the village (the stares, the taunting rhyme, the dread of her twice-weekly shopping trip) makes social anxiety and ostracism viscerally real.
Feelings it meets
What it is
Shirley Jackson's 1962 novel is narrated by eighteen-year-old Merricat Blackwood, who lives on an isolated family estate with her older sister Constance and their ailing Uncle Julian, six years after most of the family died from arsenic in the sugar bowl. Constance was tried and acquitted, but the villagers still believe she is guilty, and Merricat endures their hostility on her twice-weekly trips into town.
Where to find it
In print; widely available from libraries (Libby/Hoopla), and as an audiobook. Still in copyright.
Before you start
Heads up: A past family mass poisoning.
Age: Ages 14+
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.Henry David Thoreau, Walden, “Conclusion”
