Howl’s Moving Castle

I admitted that i was having a hard time getting into the story in the first quarter of the book. But then, the interaction between Howl and Sophie escalated and baamm just like that i was hooked. Howl was such a drama queen and Sophie was just like, are you done yet. I love them!

There were lot of funny times and moments i found very endearing that made me felt in love with the characters.

Some people just don't “get” fantasy. They are unable to comprehend the appeal of stories full of people who never existed and never could have, genealogical tables composed entirely of unpronounceable names, and endless endpaper maps portraying craggy coastlines that look like Wales, but aren't, quite. They prefer to stay within the known world, with names which somebody, somewhere, can pronounce, and lands reliably mapped by National Geographic.

There's plenty of great reading in the realms of realistic fiction, to be sure; but there is nothing quite like the pleasure of opening a book and stepping into a world that is purely of the imagination, yet inwardly coherent and recognizably real. Something in the human mind and spirit, something of its boundless possibilities, can perhaps best be expressed thus. Some authors, we can feel, are not so much painstakingly inventing a world full of cumbersome accoutrements, but discovering one that reveals a hidden aspect of ourselves.

Such a world is given to us by Diana Wynne Jones in Howl's Moving Castle, one of her blithest and most enchanting novels. “In the land of Ingary, where such things as seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, it is quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of three,” she begins, and immediately we are caught up in the realm of fairy-tale logic, where everyone knows the eldest of three is doomed to failure, should three siblings set out to seek their fortunes.

Sophie Hatter, who happens to be the eldest of three sisters, never questions this law of existence. She resigns herself to a mundane existence in the family hat shop (not even being “the child of a poor woodcutter, which might have given her some chance of success”). Her determination to be ordinary is disrupted by a call from the wicked Witch of the Waste, who casts a very inconvenient spell on her; and by the fearsome Wizard Howl, who, in spite of his reputation for sucking out the souls of young girls, allows her in to his mysterious moving castle, and seems to be in need of some saving himself.

As Sophie puzzles through the riddle posed by witch, wizard and castle, she finds that all is not as it seems, including her assumptions about herself. Is magic all about showy transformations and fiery battles? Or is there even more power in the stories we tell ourselves?

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Re-read review (22 Jan 2021): My first re-read of this book in a super long time and if anything, I just love it even more than ever, I burst into tears when I finished (could also be hormones talking).

I love it that we have this female protagonist who is rather insecure and unsure of herself at the beginning of the story, and it's her younger sisters that are trying to bolster her self-worth, which is such a great twist on that usual “evil stepsisters” trope. I love that so much of this book, even though the sisters were apart from each other, Sophie never stopped thinking about them or caring for them in whatever ways she could. I love that we have one sister who wants to get married and have ten children, and another sister who wants to keep on learning and making a name for herself and both of them are fine with that, support each other and help each other achieve their goals even if wildly different.

I love that it shows so many things that aren't very common but which I really like to see in YA stories: a female protagonist that starts off being insecure, but very gradually starts to realise how powerful she is because she took the first step to get out of her comfort zone, and not because anyone else (and not a dude) told her so; a hero that is endearing but so flawed and annoying at the same time; truly believable chemistry between the two leads which develops throughout the book to culminate in a very satisfying ending (that doesn't even need to show them kissing or being all handsy with each otherThis has always been one of my favourite books of all time, and this re-read has only cemented that status.I just love it, OK? *cries*---------------------I bought this many, many years ago, attracted by the colourful cover and the illustration of a handsome, crazy wizard. I did not regret it.Howl's Moving Castle is the kind of book that I come across only very rarely, where the moment I finish reading the last page, I lean back, exhale, try to digest all the plot twists at the end, then I immediately turn back to the first page and begin re-reading immediately. I am personally someone who isn't in the habit of re-reading books almost ever.Though I have owned this book for more than a decade now, but it's still in relatively good condition and I still occasionally re-read it. I think of it as one of my favourite books of all time, and it introduced me to the magical world of Diana Wynne Jones.