A review by novella42
Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

adventurous funny lighthearted mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I liked this book far more than I expected to, and for the first half or more of the book I was wondering if I possibly enjoyed it more than the Ghibli film. In the end, I was a little too baffled by the wackiness of all the inexplicable things happening, and decided I enjoyed the film a little more. But! It was a very enjoyable book and I am adding it to my shelf of comfort reads.

I think my favorite part was getting a clearer glimpse at the interiority of the characters (mostly Sophie) and what made them tick. It's very clear to me now that Howl is neurodivergent and likely coded for autism, though it's unclear how aware the author was of that when she wrote it in 1986. Mild spoiler:
His green slime "tantrum" makes far more sense to me now that I've read more on autism and the how/why of meltdowns. I kept wanting her to be more compassionate for him, which is one reason I'm marking this as moderate Ableism.
I ended up liking Howl more and Sophie a little less for these reasons, which surprised me.

Howl, the resident Manic Pixie Dreamboy, is still a frustrating character with a lot of elements of misogyny to unpack, concerning infidelity and relationships with minors. For example, Sophie is 17 and he is in his early/mid 20s.  (There's no Storygraph tag for ageism, but this book definitely has a lot of ageism, with many characters valuing youth above all else in small and large ways.) Howl is kind to her in different ways, and they seem to (kind of?) work well together, but it's not clear to me exactly why she falls for him after being frustrated with him for most of the book. It felt like a lot of stuff I've read/seen from the 80s where a lot of stuff gets excused because love enters the equation.

Howl's Moving Castle has a very "oral history fairytale told around the fire" kind of voice to me. A lot happens in exposition. Also, I don't typically enjoy mysteries because I can rarely solve the puzzles before the end and don't get the dopamine hit from that which some friends enjoy. But I suspect if you enjoy solving mysteries, this one might feel a little, um. Oddball.

I hesitated to read this book because body horror is usually a hard no for me due to trauma, but a friend said it wasn't graphic in the way I usually find hard, so I gave it a try with the reading equivalent of tiptoeing cautiously into the book. It ended up being fine for me. If anyone else is concerned about that, here's a clear detailed spoiler of what that means:

The body horror themes come in two main parts: First, Sophie is cursed to live in the body of an elderly woman, which seems to be emotionally empowering/liberating but physically painful and dangerous as she's prone to heart attacks and fears about mortality. There's quite a bit of detail in this, and my own bones creaked in sympathy. Second, there are several characters who are cursed to live "in parts" -- these are not bloody or gory scenes and while there is some emotional distress and sadness, it is moderate to mild when compared to other more prominent storylines. But an antagonist wants to combine these different parts of people into a single whole to control them. The most graphic elements are when a side character is described as having no head, and another character magically pulls a skull into their own head to be able to talk. Finally, there are other body horror elements of transformation, people getting turned into animals and trying to turn back, plus one person is killed and becomes bones in a very fairytale way. It all feels very theoretical with magical realism and lacks the kind of gritty, visceral realism a lot of books would probably try to bring to the table if this were published in 2023. It's mostly "X happened" and not so much "they felt such and such when X happened in this specific detailed way."
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