Review: Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

"I think we ought to live happily ever after." - Diana Wynne Jones, Howl's Moving Castle

I was introduced to this story first throuh the Studio Ghibli animated film. Although confusing at first, it's earned its place in my heart as one of my all-time favourite movies. Once I discovered it was based on a book, that got added to my TBR so freaking fast, and after putting it off for forever, I finally got around to buying it and giving it a readthrough.

Howl's Moving Castle follows Sophie, a young hat maker who gets cursed by the Witch of the Waste and is turned into an old woman, unable to tell anyone she is actually under a spell. After running away from home, so as not to cause confusion or fear, she turns to the mysterious moving castle, and the wizard Howl who owns it. There, she strikes a deal with the demon Calcifer--break his contract with Howl, and he'll break the spell the Witch put on her.

Although Howl is well known for eating the hearts of young girls, Sophie soon learns the rumours running wild aren't as true as she believed--but his contract with the fire demon is much more complex and mysterious than she originally anticipated. On top of it all, things are never very ordinary around the castle--from a door that opens to four different places, to a magic scarecrow following them across the hills of Ingary. Sophie must navigate through this world of magic, spells, and curses, if she ever wants to return to her true self.

The problem I have with any book-to-movie or book-to-TV adaptation is that I have a big tendency to prefer the version I experience first, and Howl's Moving Castle seems to be no exception. One of the only reasons I kept reading was my love for the movie. (Another was that I was too far into it and didn't have time to read through another book before my review was due WELP.)

Don't get me wrong, though--the world was just as magical as the movie portrayed it, for which I was grateful. They don't often go into too much detail or backstory about the world, and just sort of let you take the reigns and run with it. Heavy world building is what normally turns me away from the fantasy genre, so I like that a book with a premise so highly dependent on fantastic elements is able to make the world come alive without having to go into the whole history of how it all began. That much, at least, the book did right.

This version of the story failed me, though. The things that I found most interesting--namely, Howl's history and background in Wales--wasn't explored anywhere near as much as I thought they should have been. I wanted to know how he found Ingary, why he left Wales, what form magic takes in our world. Instead, we got no explanation--we just had to accept that that was Howl's history and move on, with little more detail or answers. 

Meanwhile, my favourite bits that were included were sort of left up in the air until the last minute. Sohpie and Howl's relationship barely seemed to progress at all until the final few chapters, until suddenly Sophie was jealous and they were in love. I got absolutely no indication of Howl or anyone knowing of the curse, and quite frankly the appearance of her family towards the end was just kind of random. I did love Michael's relationship with Martha, and enjoyed watching as that progressed on the sidelines. But that was about the only saving grace for me.

I don't know. I feel like this book had so much potential, but as much as I loved the movie, the book just didn't give me the same feeling.

Final rating: 2.8

Until later,

- Justyne