"My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise, I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cap mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead..."

The first page of We Have Always Lived in the Castle immediately draws you into this strange and claustrophobic book.
The story is told by Merricat. Her voice is childish for an eighteen-year-old, which makes sense since she's been cut off from the rest of the village/world since the majority of her family died when she was 12. She invents magical safekeepers to ensure that everything remains as it is, including magic words that should not be mentioned, burying things in the garden as offerings. Above all, Merricat is an unreliable narrator, which makes her very intriguing.

Shirley Jackson creates a universe where time seems to stand still forever: a fixed routine for every day of the week, the same walking route to the library and the grocery store, her sister Constance who obsessively cooks the vegetables from the garden to store in jars (like all the other Blackwood women before her). This family is completely cut off from the outside world until unexpected visit threatens the fragile stability of the family and of Merricat's mind.

This book is mysterious, bizarre, sinister, haunting, and leaves the reader with an ever-growing sense of unease. Love it!