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A review by aotora
Castle in the Air by Diana Wynne Jones
3.0
I finally got around to reading the second book in this series and it was a chore. The first half of the book took about forever to get through but then the second half finally picked up and I started enjoying it.
I guess that I had two main issues with this book: Abdullah's speaking - it got so annoying so fast. I get that he is from a fancy part of the country where they all speak like that but my gosh did it start to get annoying really really fast when every time he wanted to say something he would add a ton of fluff before he finally got to the jist of what he wanted to say- heck the characters even start acknowledging that by the end of the book and start asking him to get to the point already. His whole love story with Flower- he fell in love with her after seeing her twice and they were suddenly madly in love and married after knowing each other for what, three days? They worked together to beat the main villain yeah but that romance still felt really rushed and like they were married purely on looks not really knowing each other - and same with Justin and Beatrice- he was supposed to marry her, he instantly rejected her because reasons then they meet in the castle and they somehow instantly fall in love and are married soon after without really getting to know each other.
The story is somewhat similar to Aladdin- we have Abdullah, a young carpet merchant that acquires a magic carpet and genie and goes on a journey to rescue the princess - I started reading her name as Flower because Flower-in-the-night got really annoying after a while.
Most of the characters from the first book are in this but they are enchanted throughout the majority of it so you don't really know who they are - genie is actually Howl which is super obvious by the end of the book because he is just as vein and childish as he was and Calcifer becomes the rug, and Sophie becomes a cat- she also gives birth to her and Howl's baby as a cat then they both get turned back to humans- I did like the part where Morgan was getting irritated because he could already walk as cat then he suddenly became a human baby that wasn't able to move on his own - I hope that we see Howl as a dad in the third book though!
The ending seemed a bit rushed to me- the final battle went by really fast and the villains that were build up for the entire book were insanely easily defeated, I liked the final battle of the first book much more, it was fast paced, full of action and the villain didn't get defeated that fast.
Overall it's still a good book and I enjoyed the story and the journey, but I still prefer the first book over this one. This one is okay but I don't plan on picking it up again any time soon.
I guess that I had two main issues with this book: Abdullah's speaking - it got so annoying so fast. I get that he is from a fancy part of the country where they all speak like that but my gosh did it start to get annoying really really fast when every time he wanted to say something he would add a ton of fluff before he finally got to the jist of what he wanted to say- heck the characters even start acknowledging that by the end of the book and start asking him to get to the point already. His whole love story with Flower- he fell in love with her after seeing her twice and they were suddenly madly in love and married after knowing each other for what, three days? They worked together to beat the main villain yeah but that romance still felt really rushed and like they were married purely on looks not really knowing each other - and same with Justin and Beatrice- he was supposed to marry her, he instantly rejected her because reasons then they meet in the castle and they somehow instantly fall in love and are married soon after without really getting to know each other.
The story is somewhat similar to Aladdin- we have Abdullah, a young carpet merchant that acquires a magic carpet and genie and goes on a journey to rescue the princess - I started reading her name as Flower because Flower-in-the-night got really annoying after a while.
Most of the characters from the first book are in this but they are enchanted throughout the majority of it so you don't really know who they are - genie is actually Howl which is super obvious by the end of the book because he is just as vein and childish as he was and Calcifer becomes the rug, and Sophie becomes a cat- she also gives birth to her and Howl's baby as a cat then they both get turned back to humans- I did like the part where Morgan was getting irritated because he could already walk as cat then he suddenly became a human baby that wasn't able to move on his own - I hope that we see Howl as a dad in the third book though!
The ending seemed a bit rushed to me- the final battle went by really fast and the villains that were build up for the entire book were insanely easily defeated, I liked the final battle of the first book much more, it was fast paced, full of action and the villain didn't get defeated that fast.
Overall it's still a good book and I enjoyed the story and the journey, but I still prefer the first book over this one. This one is okay but I don't plan on picking it up again any time soon.