💙 The story is told from the perspective of Sophie Hatter, a 18-year-old eldest girl of three sisters in a magical kingdom of Ingary. Accustomed to the "rule" that an eldest will never succeed, Sophie accepts her dull existence as a hatter in the family shop, with no bright future ahead. Until the Witch of Waste finds her and turns her into an old woman, apparently with no reasonable motive - but that will be part of the mystery.
💙 Ashamed of her condition, Sophie runs away from home, and finds herself in Howl's Castle. Howl is a wizard with notorious reputation as young girls' heartbreaker. He lives in a "castle" which constantly moves, and has several doors which are portals opening to various places. They are bewitched by Howl's fire demon Calcifer. The latter was bound to a contract with Howl, and longs to break it.
💙 Enter poor Sophie, who needs someone to lift the Witch of the Waste's curse, and thinks that Calcifer might do that if she helps him break his contract. She pretends to be a cleaning lady to get to stay in the castle. And thus, the unsophisticated Sophie, who doesn't realize her own magical power, becomes member of the household, which, besides Howl and the fire demon, also consists of an apprentice boy called Michael. A lot of hilarious adventures spring up from these unlikely gang, as the mystery around themselves is slowly unfolding, and the need to conquer their enemies grows.
💙 I wonder whether I'd enjoy this more had I read it as a child - maybe. But I felt like wanting to know a lot more about the character's struggle than the writer permitted. I might have compared this to Harry Potter. The latter swept me to its universe so easily, but I felt none about this one. It is a nice fantasy story, but not as impressive as I would've expected.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
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Sorry this one didn't work so well for you Fanda. My experience with fantasy is mixed too--like you I really enjoyed Harry Potter, but not many others. This one I however enjoyed very much, especially how she plays around with fairy tale tropes.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry this didn't work for you, I know that certain types of fantasy don't work for everyone and DWJ's approach to the genre is idiosyncratic and won't click with every reader.
ReplyDeleteI can only point to a review I did relatively recently in the hopes that it might explain the kinds of aspects that appealed to me – even if they mightn't for you! 🙂https://wp.me/s2oNj1-ingary
I do like this one although I think I read it as an adult. However, unlike some fantasies, it can be frustrating not to understand how the magic is working. There is another DWJ (I won't say which one) that has a very unreliable narrator. I have never had a chance to reread it to see what clues there were for the reader but I remember thinking it was a bit unfair (yet very clever!). Good to get your perspective on this author!
ReplyDeleteThey made a cute animated movie of this book that I thought was really fun.
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