Book Sniffers: Reader's Reactions: Howl's Moving Castle

Hello Book Nerds!

This is the start of a new series of posts I've decided to start. "Reader's Reactions" will contain a list of my own initial reactions, plus two scores out of five stars. The first one is what I expected the book to score based off things like friend recommendations, the book blurb, online hype, etc. The second score will be number of stars I believe it actually deserves after I finish reading it. Now, these are my gut reactions. If I'd gone back to examine the book more closely a second time, I might have different notes. These are my own opinions. So please don't blast me with hate angry comments. Lastly, these posts will of course contain spoilers, so YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

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The first book in this collection is Diana Wynne Jones' Howl's Moving Castle. You may recognize the title from the famous Miyazaki movie adaptation. I will admit that I saw the movie before I read the book. I did compare the two in several of my comments because, let's face it, it's really hard not to. But I also assessed the book as an independent story as well.

(With Question 21:) I like this rendition of Calcifer here.~Jamie {Calcifer, studio ghibli}:

Sophie & Howl how they look in the book. He is even wearing the patchwork blue and silver suit.:

For those of you who don't know, the main plot of the book centers around a girl named Sophie. Since she is the eldest child in her family, she knows that she will never be the one to go off and learn magic or have grand adventures. That sort of thing is reserved for the youngest children. So she tries to be content working at her mother's hat shop day in and day out as her younger sisters either go off to find a husband or to learn magic. Because of her loneliness she starts to talk to the hats she makes and it soon becomes apparent that her words may hold some magic of their own. Eventually, through a series of events, Sophie finds herself cursed and turned into an old woman by a witch. Deciding that she doesn't want her family to see her that way she sets off on her own adventure, eldest child or not. Out in the hills she runs across the moving castle that has always terrified her home town. It is said that a wizard named Howl lived there who would tear the hearts out of young girls and eat their souls. However, Sophie decides that a wizard wouldn't want to eat the heart of such a withered old woman, so she enters the castle. What she finds inside is nothing like what she'd imagined: a messy living space, a lazy and vain wizard, a young apprentice, and a secretive fire demon. Her new-found age seems to have given her the courage and sass to create a new life for herself within this strange family. Sophie soon establishes herself as the new cleaning lady and spends her days taking care of the other three castle inhabitants, learning magic, and trying to break spells. With her new confidence and a little magic, her life has definitely become the adventure she thought she'd never have.

Okay, here are the initial reactions that I had concerning this book:

EXPECTATION: 4.5 stars

ACTUAL: 2.5 stars

(WARNING: SPOILERS!!!)

Howl's Moving Castle Cover by ~ketari on deviantART ANOTHER INTERPRETATION OF THE BOOK. :):

The first third of the book equaled most of the movie.
Most of the text is explaining what’s happening. Very little is dialogue or internal monologue. I think the story would have been more interesting if there had been more of a balance between those elements.
I was hoping that the book would explain more of the vague aspects of the movie. It did a little bit, like what the spirit/falling star things were and why Howl swallowed it. But there were many other things that were not explained. And there were things that were even more complicated that weren’t in the movie. I think I prefer the magical, if somewhat vagueness of the movie.
This book seems to examine some of the tropes of the fairy tale genre. They look at: the trend of the youngest of three siblings being the one to succeed or go on an adventure, magical abilities being obvious to everyone (including the person who has them), it's only young protagonists that can succeed and thrive in a fairy tale, the wizard is always the wise and responsible character, plus many more. The book takes these ideas and turns them on their head.
The Lettie-Lettie-Martha thing was weird. (I'd go into it more, but it's just really hard to explain. You'll have to read the book!)
The romance was so subtle that it was almost not there. In the movie, by having Sophie revert to her younger self occasionally it made it more obvious. I don’t know how Sophie fell in love with Howl in the book. His kindnesses were so subtle that it was hard to notice them over his many flaws. He seemed like more of a whiny, selfish child than anything else. Supposedly he got better towards the end of the book, but it just barely. I wouldn't have minded if they just didn't have them start to fall in love until the end of the book. But the author made it sound like Sophie had been falling in love with him throughout the book and I saw almost no evidence of that. It came as almost a surprise to me at the end (and I've seen the movie!).
I miss the movie music. Maybe I should have listened to it while I read.
I liked how Sophie’s magical abilities were more pronounced and defined. It seemed a bit easy though. She just had to talk to things and want it enough. I suppose that has to do with empathy and kindness though, which makes it harder and more unique.