Let's Bust a Recap : Howl's Moving Castle

I guess this week we'll be catching up on all the library books I've read so far this year. Last year, I confessed to you that I wasn't a library user partly due to the fact that I'm a very slow reader and it seems like a bad idea to give myself the pressure of a deadline in reading anything. The bigger reason I haven't been much of a library patron up to this point in my life is that I have a veritable library of nearly seven hundred unread books in my own home (not to mention all the books we own that I have read and love to re-read) so why would I need to go check out more books??

I don't really have a good answer to that question except that readers gotta read, am I right? The book club I'm in has been going strong for about two years now and I blame them entirely for my newfound love for my local library. 

But Howl's Moving Castle wasn't even a book club selection so how did we get here? I'm so glad you asked; let the saga continue. Because I still use my husband's library card (I should really get my own), he gets all the e-mail notifications when books I've placed on hold are available for me to pick up. So when he realized I'm now an expert at gaming the online system and making the librarians do all the work of finding the books I want and getting them ready for me, he asked me to put a hold on Howl's Moving Castle for him. He watched the movie earlier this year and decided the book would be worth reading. 

But how did you end up reading this book, Hannah, and will you ever get to the actual recap for the love? Fair question. After a few weeks of Cody talking about how he thinks I might like the book and he'll let me know if I should read it once he finishes—but not actually making progress on the book himself—my Type A kicked in and I suggested we just read it out loud together. Voila, there you have it.

So mid-March found me reading this 1986 children's fantasy novel by British author Diana Wynne Jones aloud to my husband. Fun times. 

In Howl's Moving Castle, we meet Sophie Hatter who is the eldest of three sisters living in the town of Market Chipping in the magical kingdom of Ingary. Because of her oldest-child-of-three status, she is doomed to a dull life while her two younger sisters have much more exciting futures ahead of them. But when 18-year old Sophie is turned into an old crone by a jealous wicked witch, she finds herself on a crazy adventure of her own. She treks out of the village to the mysterious moving castle of the infamous Wizard Howl and demands to be his housekeeper. What follows is a jumbled mess of a story involving lost wizards and princes, deals with fire demons to try to break curses and contracts, sisters using spells to switch places, and a little bit of romance, too. The story truly is chaotic and hard to follow, but I think the main takeaway is that you can make your own way in life rather than just accepting the fairytale destiny assigned to you.

Despite the muddled plot and confusing cast of characters, Cody and I did enjoy Howl's Moving Castle. Jones' writing is laugh out loud funny and somehow charming even though her novel could have used some serious focus. I still haven't watched the critically-acclaimed movie adaptation that came out in 2004 which prompted Cody to check this book out from the library in the first place. According to Cody, he wanted to read the book because he enjoyed the movie but thought the book might fill in some of the gaps (as is always the case). But then after reading the book, his verdict is that both the film and the book have their strong points, but ultimately both have messy, abrupt conclusions that Need Work. It turns out that Jones ended up writing more books for a Howl Series, but we probably won't seek those out though I may still watch the film at some point. 

All in all, I don't think I'd find myself recommending Howl's Moving Castle to just anyone, but it is entertaining and would be a fun read-aloud with kids. 

But to come full-circle: are you a faithful library patron? And do you have a great local library near you? Ours is wonderful, and in case you were wondering, I currently have one book checked out (that I haven't started yet) and am waiting for three holds to come in (one being Stephanie Garber's upcoming release that I mentioned on Monday).