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WoGF Review: Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
For Lynn Williams (lynnsbooks) books are much more than a hobby or a pastime they’re really an obsession. If she’s not reading a book, she’s talking about books on her blog, Lynn’s Book Blog, or deciding which books to buy next. Lynn reads all sorts of books, sometimes straying into YA, but her first love is fantasy. Recently she started to cross into science fiction thanks to the suggestions of some very excellent bloggers.
Editor’s Note: This review counts for November.
Just finished reading Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones. This book is just so good that I want everybody to read it. Right now. Not only did I love this, not only did it make me laugh at inopportune times, but I felt annoyed when I had to stop reading and it’s just got me so excited that I want to talk to everybody else about it. I devoured it. I sat reading in my lunch time laughing and giggling and attracting some very strange looks. My colleagues, intrigued, were like ‘what are you reading?’ ‘Howl’s Moving Castle‘, I said. ‘Oh, I didn’t know that was a book!’ The funny thing is neither did I! In fact it would never have occurred to me to be honest. I love the film, I really do. Could I choose between the two? Probably at the moment I’d err on the side of the book, but that’s because it’s still so fresh and is still making me smile. I’ll have to go and re-watch the film to see how it compares. Anyway, thank goodness for Worlds Without End – without their Women of Genre reading challenge I may never have picked this book up and that would have been a damned fine shame!
The story starts with Sophie. The eldest of three sisters she is destined to fail – it’s the strange will of the fairytale land in which she lives, after all, it’s always the younger sister/princess who is the real focus of the story as we all know. Her two younger sisters experience all the fun and freedom and are even sent out into the world to gain meaningful employment whilst Sophie remains at home, working in the hat shop that belonged to her late father and seemingly becoming more diminished and shrunken as time goes on. The strange thing with Sophie though is that she seems to hold deep within herself a magical ability that allows her to infuse everyday objects almost with a life force of their own. Unfortunately, these abilities draw the attention of the Witch of the Waste and certainly not in a good way! The Witch of the Waste is a whole lot of bad, she’s jealous of any other magical ability and so she goes in search of Sophie. Of course, Sophie is no match for this wicked witch who curses her turning her into an old woman and thus starting this wonderful adventure.
