Joanna
🎧Audiobook
I’m disappointed I didn’t like this more than I did. I love the concept of a moving castle going on adventures, and I love the cover artwork. But unfortunately it fell way short of the hype for me.
Some parts haven’t aged well from the 80’s, and don’t add to the story or provide any kind of allegorical meaning for its audience of children: a lot of ageism; ableism; misogynistic stereotypes; women apparently having an insatiable appetite for cleaning; young girls marrying; spanking as punishment children are familiar with; drunkenness as an endearing state; the rumoured murdering of little girls by an adult male wizard as a plot device; the main character wizard’s whole point of existence to seduce young girls then dump them when they become interested. As another reviewer described it - fuckboy’s moving castle. Indeed.
It had a faint, meandering plot that didn’t keep my interest. It was just a series of things happening, with not much happening in terms of character development either. I think I would have been bored reading this when I was young as well.
There were moments I enjoyed, like some of the amusing interactions between the main characters, but they were fleeting and soon flattened by the constant ageism and ableism (apparently one of the MCs could only ever “stump about” with her walking stick, never actually “walk”), and the lack of plot with tenuously connecting things happening over and over. There were many moments where I thought the pace and plot were going to finally pick up, but would then quickly resume its plodding.
I also really think the whole moving castle thing and the lands it visited could have been a captivating element of the story, but it disappointingly wasn’t explored much.
I almost gave up several times in boredom. But I kept on, hoping for improvement. Alas.
Despite this, I plan on watching the anime movie because it looks beautiful and there’s potential in an adaptation of the story to make it shine without the book’s drawbacks. We shall see.
4/5 stars for the audiobook narration by Kristin Atherton.
🎧Audiobook
I’m disappointed I didn’t like this more than I did. I love the concept of a moving castle going on adventures, and I love the cover artwork. But unfortunately it fell way short of the hype for me.
Some parts haven’t aged well from the 80’s, and don’t add to the story or provide any kind of allegorical meaning for its audience of children: a lot of ageism; ableism; misogynistic stereotypes; women apparently having an insatiable appetite for cleaning; young girls marrying; spanking as punishment children are familiar with; drunkenness as an endearing state; the rumoured murdering of little girls by an adult male wizard as a plot device; the main character wizard’s whole point of existence to seduce young girls then dump them when they become interested. As another reviewer described it - fuckboy’s moving castle. Indeed.
It had a faint, meandering plot that didn’t keep my interest. It was just a series of things happening, with not much happening in terms of character development either. I think I would have been bored reading this when I was young as well.
There were moments I enjoyed, like some of the amusing interactions between the main characters, but they were fleeting and soon flattened by the constant ageism and ableism (apparently one of the MCs could only ever “stump about” with her walking stick, never actually “walk”), and the lack of plot with tenuously connecting things happening over and over. There were many moments where I thought the pace and plot were going to finally pick up, but would then quickly resume its plodding.
I also really think the whole moving castle thing and the lands it visited could have been a captivating element of the story, but it disappointingly wasn’t explored much.
I almost gave up several times in boredom. But I kept on, hoping for improvement. Alas.
Despite this, I plan on watching the anime movie because it looks beautiful and there’s potential in an adaptation of the story to make it shine without the book’s drawbacks. We shall see.
4/5 stars for the audiobook narration by Kristin Atherton.