This is one of my favourite books ever. I first read it at 14, and have read it several times since. My mum also read it recently and thought it was brilliant, and my boyfriend loved the film. Although essentially a romance, the story takes the characters and reader through a variety of emotions. There are the odd one or two moments that are quite sad, but the majority of it is hilarious. I laughed with tears in my eyes on several occasions. An amazing book.

From the back cover: 'I write this sitting in the kitchen sink' is the first line of a novel about love, sibling rivalry and a bohemian existence in a crumbling castle in the middle of nowhere. Cassandra Mortmain's journal records her fadingly glamorous stepmother, her beautiful, wistful older sister and the man to whom they owe both their isolation and poverty - Father. The author of one experimental novel, and a minor 'cause celebre', he has since suffered from writer's block and is determined to drag his family down with him. But if the iron has entered Father's soul it hasn't penetrated Cassandra's...

Released on Thursday, October 02, 2003 at The number 100 bus between Oxford and Witney in Oxford, England United Kingdom.

I will leave the book on the top deck of the bus when I get on in Oxford, on the left hand side, near the back.