After finishing Howl's Moving Castle I immediately Googled “Diana Wynne Jones” to see how many more books in this series I can look forward to. The first thing I noticed was
“Died: March 26, 2011”. My reaction was “WTF? And we are just getting acquainted!”

The book starts off charmingly with:
“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.”

This misfortune falls on 18-year-old Sophie Hatter, who is introduced while helping her mother to make hats for selling in their hat shop*. She is feeling lonely while making these hats and talks to them like Tom Hanks talks to his volleyball, Wilson**, in the movie Castaway. Soon a witch visits her shop and promptly turns her into a very old woman (a “terrible old biddy” even) for no apparent reason. Initially accepting this ghastly state of affairs with strange equanimity (due to shock) she soon leaves her mother’s shop to find some way of lifting the curse. She ends up practically forcing Howl the wizard to take her on as his housekeeper for his “moving castle”, so-called because it is constantly roaming the country.

“It was odd. As a girl, Sophie would have shriveled with embarrassment at the way she was behaving. As an old woman, she did not mind what she did or said. She found that a great relief.”

They keyword for the appeal of Howl's Moving Castle is charm. I am usually reluctant to read YA books because the “Y” part of it is a (un)fairly distant memory for me, and I have had enough of books about sexy teens fighting Dystopian governments. However, I was intrigued by Studio Ghibli’s 2004 animated film adaptation. The director Hayao Miyazaki is a legend among anime fans and a spectacularly gifted artist, whose works are always brimming with unique and astounding visuals. So if he deems a book by an English author I know nothing about worth adapting then it must be something special.

Howl's Moving Castle is whimsical and charming in the way that reminds me of  Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. However, Howl’s Moving Castle is aimed at somewhat younger readership, the prose is less Austen-tatious (to coin a word) and is much shorter. It has weird, wonderful and wacky characters with amusing idiosyncrasies that stop short of being cartoonish. Beside the two central characters Sophie and Howl, I absolutely love the character “Calcifer” who is a literally fiery demon who functions in the castle as a fireplace and a cooking stove. Of course, he is already interesting by nature, but he also has wonderfully quirky personality.


The castle itself is a fascinating invention, its ability to move is not even its most remarkable feature. The front door opens to different locations, depending on the position of the colour-coded doorknob. Even that is not the weirdest thing, the interior of the castle is located in a different part of the country while simultaneously being the inside of a moving castle. The mind boggles.


I have to admit that initially while reading this book I missed read something more “edgy”, adult, dark, brooding and bloody; something to satisfy my mean streak. Ah, but Diana Wynne Jones charmed me into submission, I was half in love with her by page 70. This book often brought a smile to my face and if you are looking for some way to turn that frown upside down this is just the thing.
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* Unfortunately the word for a hat shop is not “hattery” as I had hoped but “millinery”.
** Tennis ball volleyball, thanks Skip!

A Word about the Anime
The anime film adaptation is a beautiful work of art, intricately hand drawn and fluidly animated. In this age of computer animation like Toy Story and Shrek, Studio Ghibli’s beautiful, meticulous artwork is something to be treasured. As an adaptation of Diana Wynne Jones’ book, it is—in my estimation—about 60% faithful to the source material. Ms. Wynne Jones was well aware of this and heartily approved, as mentioned in an interview at the end of Howl's Moving Castle. She understood that movie is a different media and some alterations must be made.

Certainly it is a very good anime, but it is substantially different from the book. There is a steampunk styling to the eponymous castle that is not in the book, and the main characters behave somewhat differently from their book counterparts, especially the antagonist “The Witch of The Waste”.

Also, Miyazaki's Howl is much less flamboyant than Ms. Wynne Jones', and has a tendency to brood. The anime is much more romantic and sentimental, yet it is also darker in some instances and less comical. I don’t think the changes improve on the book, but they don’t need to. I think that you should read the book first to appreciate all the nuances. In any case, both the book and the anime are wonderful in their own ways and I am happy to own a copy of each.

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More quotes:

“Tidying up is what I’m here for!” she shouted at Howl. “Then you must think of a new meaning for your life,” Howl said.

“Sophie was suddenly overwhelmed by the fact that she was standing talking to the King. It was, she thought dizzily, as if the man sitting there and the huge, important thing which was kingship were two separate things that just happened to occupy the same chair.”

Before Hayao Miyazaki made "Howl's Moving Castle" into a feature length animated film in 2006 (2004 if you saw it in Japan), it was a book written by Diana Wynne Jones in 1986. Due to the inherent difficulties of creating an animated film, Miyazaki greatly abridged and adjusted the plot of the novel for his movie. I happened to enjoy both film and novel but after reading the book I realized that the plot is extremely different in the novel--enough that the book and movie become completely different viewing experiences.

Anyway, that's all I'm going to say about the movie. On to the discussion of the book:

Sophie lives "in the land of Ingary, where such things as seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility exist." In other words, all of the traditional fairy tale stories are real. Not so bad, except that Sophie Hatter is the eldest of three sisters, which everyone knows means Sophie is doomed to failure should she ever set out to seek her fortunes. Sophie is resigned to her fate--living obscurely, and less than successfully, working in the family hat shop. Except that this is not a traditional fairy tale and events soon intervene to set Sophie on a very unexpected course indeed for an eldest daughter.

It all starts in the hat shop after some interesting things begin to happen when Sophie talks to the hats she trims. Interesting enough to attract the attention of the dangerous Witch of the Waste. When her encounter with the Witch of the Waste leaves Sophie cursed in the body of an old woman, she has no choice but to go out and seek her fortune in hopes of breaking the curse (even if she is an eldest daughter).

Along the way, Sophie comes upon a mysterious moving castle that has taken up in the hill's of Ingary. The castle belongs to Wizard Howl "who was known to amuse himselv by collection young girls and sucking the souls from them. Or some people said he ate their hearts." Either way, he was not anyone Sophie expected to ever meet let alone move in with. Until she does. Adventure ensues as Sophie tries to break the curse and help Howl with his own uniquely magical problems.

In terms of fantasy novels, "Howl's Moving Castle" is one of my favorites. The world Jones creates is fully realized without ever getting boring or limiting the reader's imagination. The tone of her narrative is also spot on. Readers of Jane Austen's novels or the "Sorcery and Cecelia" series will notice a similar narrative voice. Although this novel is largely timeless, the prose has a charmingly Victorian tone--taking its time to arrive at the action, the better to familiarize readers with the characters involved and show the readers just how fantastic they (and the story) really are.

I also adore this story because it is romantic, thrilling, and completely absorbing. Even at 329 pages, the novel is far too short. Happily, Diana Wynne Jones follows up "Howl's Moving Castle" with "Castle in the Air" (1990) and a brand new book featuring Sophie and Howl ("House of Many Ways") is due out in May of 2008.

You can find this review and more on my blog Miss Print

i had such a lovely time reading this!

I watched the movie, Howl's Moving Castle, directed by Hayao Miyazaki, when I was going through my anime phase, not to mention I'm pretty much always going through a Christian Bale phase. I loved it, of course, it was so odd and just plain weird, exactly why I enjoy anime so much.



This was quite a while ago, and it wasn't until just recently that I started reading reviews of the book by Diana Wynne Jones, so I ordered it right away. And, because my "to read" pile is enormous, it sat on my shelf for another couple months.

So, to end this terribly interesting story, I somehow got into this "read the book after having already seen the movie because I had no idea there was a book to read" phase (see Stardust) and it was excellent.

The moral of this riveting story: don't wait, just read, you won't be disappointed.

Sophie is the eldest of three sisters and of course not much is expected of the eldest. She gets on the wrong side of the Witch of the Waste and is cursed to look 90 years old. She doesn't know what to do other than to leave her house without scaring her family and head into town. Not knowing what to do or who to go to, she continues heading outside of town and ends up walking to Howl's moving castle.

Howl's known for stealing little girls away, but she figures that's no longer her problem, she's old now...and who better to help her out than a wizard.

This really is such an endearing tale, I enjoyed the characters so much and I'm excited to have also found out that there are two more books to follow. I know, it sometimes baffles me how much I can enjoy these middle-grade books.

And because it's a middle-grade book, the writing is perfectly simplistic. It's told in third person, but from the perspective of Sophie, an adolescent. Howl's Moving Castle is so hard to put down, Sophie bumbles from problems with her curse to problems with the fickle Howl, who, as Sophie calls him, is a slitherer-outer, one who slithers out of doing anything.

On top of that, the magic is different than anything I've seen. It's so odd and quirky, it's so fun to read. For instance, the moving castle is also connected to two different places, Porthaven and Kingsbury. As long as the correct color is lined up on the door, you can connect to the requisite city or place. Then there's all the oddity that is Howl always chasing after different women, Calsifer (the devious fire demon), and Michael (Howl's apprentice).

When to Read Howl's Moving Castle?

This is perfect for a light reading mood. Howl's Moving Castle is full of magic and humor and great characters that are tons of fun to read about.

4 out of 5 Stars (Loved it)

The book's vitality lies in it being a big jumble and a big Capernaum. It is full of life. Unbridled, savage, and wondrous urgency. I have not much flattering to say about Howl book 1, but what little I said, I meant every word. The book seems like its 330 pages were linked together by the words in a complex and fragile waltz.

Yet I give only 2 stars (see my rating system) to this book because of what it is, and because of what I am. I am a reader who does not take notes and who plows on most of the time. Maps from Fantasy books are wasted on me. Lists of characters in their relevant books, I skip like Lyme disease. Various editions of books mean little to me, because I avoid the prefaces, forewords, forewords to the 30th anniversary edition, and Acknowledgments without afterthought.

The book gave me a lot to unpack, about half of which you will read and the rest will be forgotten before I am done reviewing, so sorry about that. Howl's Moving Castle is the 8th book that I have read in which a major character has jet black hair, and bright green eyes. This possession of said colour is common enough in the West, except in fiction. Thing is, among all of these 8 books, this one has appeared in print earliest. So something must have influenced someone. I'll say no more about that.

I have had the blessed luck of being a fan of the anime version, and I realised that the book would be different. The curse to be divined was the major hook by which I was pulled through the narrative. I wanted to know if the eldest of the Hatter sisters (a trio of young women, more or less magical, maybe it rings a bell) was to guess correctly at Howl's affliction. Sadly, she - Sophie is her name, doesn't. And that far-reaching writing permeated my lack of enjoyment of this wonderful book.

The plot maybe was plot proof, but the plot was rendered alive due to the stupidity of Sophie. She facilitates small explosions of tragic deaths everywhere she goes, until she accidentally solves the adventurous puzzle of who will win of the two, the self absorbed yet vulnerable hero, or the very bad witch. Sophie is given lots of clues but does not show trepidation when Time, fatherly and yet almost as old as her, comes a knocking. Due to this mechanism, the book drags instead of canters.

It is challenging to portray fights in the magical realm, none more when they grace a middle grade book. Jones superbly avoids this challenge by stopping us from seeing both of the fights between Howl and the Witch. In the second fight, there is a cartoonish cloud that hides the epic battle. It all was very hush hush. What was the author thinking? Was she paying an homage to Looney Tunes?

The magical system is fraught with missing pieces. We do not know how this magic works. There is no Latin gibberish, and there are no wands. So the magic is mysterious, which would have made sense and would have prettied the proceedings. One is born a witch. We do not know that Sophie, the MC, is one, because she is the eldest and therefore according to the beliefs on this Land, boring. There is no fate, only magic and those interesting enough to possess it.

The fire demon side of the book was problematic but saying more would be revealing. All things considered I would recommend this book as a palate cleanser if you had an overdose of Lugosi type vampires and heroes endowed with a magic sword. I have respect for the author, because her voice is unique. But I also feel that the book does not help itself with its lame glissandos and anti climaxes.

I fell in love with this sweet fairy tale and now I have to see the movie.

This was such an enchanting story!

OK, I'll just be one of the minorities here and accept that I didn't enjoy this at all.

The beginning was great, I got very curious, but quickly baffled with the sharp transitions between the real and the magical worlds. I was also quite bored for almost half of it after the introduction.

There are things I enjoyed like Sophie's character change and becoming a bold woman when she was old. That was a very nice touch. I liked some of the dialogue, it was funny at times.
But, mostly it was a bit all over the place and I really didn't enjoy the story.
That's all I can say. I'm really curious to see the movie though.

4.5 stars!

This was a fun and magical young adult fantasy about family, courage, and learning who you are. Howl's Moving Castle follows Sophie, a hat maker who is transformed into an old lady by the Witch of the Waste. To break the spell she makes a deal with a fire demon, has to deal with Howl, a heartless wizard and fight the Witch of the Waste. During her journey she learns more about herself and discovers that Howl is a nice person.

This book was so good!! The world building was awesome, I loved learning about this unique world of witches, wizards and demons that the author created. I was completely immersed in this intriguing world from the very beginning although the pacing in the middle was a little slow. The plot was so interesting and I loved the funny moments in the book. The characters are so fun and complex. I love Sophie, she is tough, stubborn, nice, brave and helpful. I love Howl, he is funny, charming, sweet and stubborn. I also really like Micheal, he is helpful, dependent, reliable and fun. I also really liked the side characters especially Calcifer and Sophie's sisters Martha and Lettie. The character development was excellent, I loved watching Sophie grow into a strong and brave person. I also loved that she learned more about herself and her worth. I loved the banter between Howl and Sophie. The ending was so good! I'm so glad it ended on a happy note!

I recommend this book to anyone who loves young adult fantasy, fun characters and excellent world building.

وای وای وای.. من از قبل این‌که برم سراغش هم می‌دونستم خیلی خوبه. ولی نه دیگه درین حد! :O-o

روایت بی‌نهایت ساده، روراست و واضحه. این‌قد که تا وسطای داستان، فک نمی‌کنی این‌روایت سهل و ساده بخواد به‌یه‌شاهکار ختم بشه. ولی در نهایت، می‌بینی تمام چیزهای کوچیک و ساده، بذرهای نهال بزرگی بودن که آخر داستان بهش می‌رسی. بعد هم شخصیت‌پردازی معرکه‌ی نویسنده که جداً اگه کسی می‌خواد شخصیت‌پردازی یاد بگیره، این‌کتاب یکی از بهترین نمونه‌هاشه. به‌قدری شخصیت‌ها واقعی و باورپذیر و دوست‌داشتنی‌ن که نمی‌تونی تصور کنی همه اینا یه‌داستانه! فقط یه‌داستانه!

و بعد هم دیالوگ‌ها. من چقد تحت تأثیر دیالوگ‌نویسی نویسنده قرار گرفتم ینی؛ بارها و بارها بعضی دیالوگ‌ها رو می‌خوندم یا حتی بر می‌گشتم عقب که فلان‌دیالوگـو یه‌بار دیگه هم بخونم. این‌کار ِ نویسنده به‌هیچ‌اثری شبیه نبود. اصلاً انگار نویسنده تو یه‌دنیای دیگه زندگی می‌کنه که همه این‌اتفاقا می‌افتن و این‌قد قشنگ تونسته درشون بیاره. نکنه همچین دنیا- بهتر بگم، دنیاها!- یی هس؟

برام الهام‌بخش بود. کاش ازین‌دست آثار بیشتر نوشته بشن و منم بیشتر بخونم. دنیا به‌چنین دنیاهایی احتیاج داره!

this is the most magical story I have ever read

Every single character in this book is a vibe. I think I’ve read it six times now and I am delighted every single time. Sophie and Howl are my toxic OTP and also possibly the reason I like Folk of the Air so much (power lady and twink ❤️)