Paperback, 304 pages
English language
Published Nov. 24, 2000 by HarperCollinsChildren'sBooks.
As the oldest daughter, willful, outspoken Sophie knew that her life could lead to nothing but mistakes. When her father dies, her stepmother sends her two sisters out to make their fortunes while Sophie continues to work in the family hattery. As she whispers her thoughts to the hats she trims, the shop begins to grow in popularity, until she offends the Wicked Witch of the Waste. The witch casts a spell turning Sophie into an old woman. Sophie leaves the shop and happens upon the castle of the Wizard Howl. He has a reputation for finding young women and eating their hearts but that doesn't stop Sophie from moving in and turning the lives of the whole castle, including Howl's apprentice and his fire demon, upside down in a battle against the wicked witch and for Sophie's future.
I'm so glad I finally read this.
Everyone wants to marry Howl, especially me. He is the ultimate 'I can fix him' man, and that's just from the film! This book? Stupendous. Refreshing. Like a minty salve smeared over my forehead. Every character shines. The writing quality is a folktune on the ears. Sophie is a wonderful and deeply relatable protaginist for all of her pragmatisism and cynicism, but with just enough good-heartedness to carry her forward.
My only gripe is that the ending tries to bundle up everything at once in a way that comes off as a little confusing for how chaotic it gets, but it's not something I really mind.
We've had a lot of discussions at home of book v film, and I enjoy the film, but I think of it as an almost completely separate thing. I very much enjoy the book - it is a great readaloud with plenty to get into.
Fun, slapstick, and gross, mixed up identities and perspectives on fantasy and youth.
Such a refreshing fantasy world, and the narration is so beautiful.
This was my favourite book as a child, and reading it to my own children now it remains wonderful. Highly recommended.
Middle-grade fantasy that never takes full flight.
Nice story, bit very hurried ending.
I picked this up because I'm so familiar with the Ghibli film, I had to know the source material.
Without bashing the movie, which is wonderful in it's own right, I just have to say that I wish the movie included more of the book than it does. As is normal, the movie changed and omitted a lot, which is unfortunate. The book breathes so much more life into what are already lively characters. Anyone more familiar with the Ghibli movie should definitely give this a read, it paints a much fuller picture of the story.
Officially head over heels for this book. I mist own it. The ending made my insides go all gooey. A perfect, magical little gem of a book.
Commute audiobook. I enjoyed the narrator of this one.
Book was ok.
I love the moving castle. LOVE it.
I felt like a lot of interesting things happen, and I liked the interplay between Sophie, calcifer and Michael. But none of it ever quite coheres into sensical plot, with the result that I found it somewhat challenging to keep track of the characters Howl may or may not be searching for and the encounters between minor characters who were probably in disguise at the time anyway. (I blame this partly on listening while driving. I can't give ALL my attention to the book...)
Spoiler below.
But honestly the biggest issue for me is the tail end--suddenly Sophie and howl are in love, but it comes out of NOWHERE. They've spent the entire book sniping at each other, and not in a "they secretly love each other but just don't know …
Commute audiobook. I enjoyed the narrator of this one.
Book was ok.
I love the moving castle. LOVE it.
I felt like a lot of interesting things happen, and I liked the interplay between Sophie, calcifer and Michael. But none of it ever quite coheres into sensical plot, with the result that I found it somewhat challenging to keep track of the characters Howl may or may not be searching for and the encounters between minor characters who were probably in disguise at the time anyway. (I blame this partly on listening while driving. I can't give ALL my attention to the book...)
Spoiler below.
But honestly the biggest issue for me is the tail end--suddenly Sophie and howl are in love, but it comes out of NOWHERE. They've spent the entire book sniping at each other, and not in a "they secretly love each other but just don't know it yet" way.
[Review 2012]: I have seen the anime before and did not expect to be much surprised by the plot, but I was wrong. There are so many differences between the book and the movie that they are probably best described as variations on the same topic.
I don't know what I like most about this book. I am fond of those fantasy stories which seem to share their basic ideas rather with the the Wizard of Oz than the Lord of the Rings. Beside this the book has something truly original. I am looking forward to read the sequel.
[Review 2023]:After reading this book again more than 10 years after my first review, I would like to add a couple of observations:
I like the idea, that the moving castle's portal door leads not only to places in the books' own fictional world of Ingary, but also to modern …
[Review 2012]: I have seen the anime before and did not expect to be much surprised by the plot, but I was wrong. There are so many differences between the book and the movie that they are probably best described as variations on the same topic.
I don't know what I like most about this book. I am fond of those fantasy stories which seem to share their basic ideas rather with the the Wizard of Oz than the Lord of the Rings. Beside this the book has something truly original. I am looking forward to read the sequel.
[Review 2023]:After reading this book again more than 10 years after my first review, I would like to add a couple of observations:
I like the idea, that the moving castle's portal door leads not only to places in the books' own fictional world of Ingary, but also to modern day Wales. Of course many authors have created this type of portal fantasy before and when I first read the book I found this idea silly and uninspired. Now on a second read, I feel different about this. What sets the doors to Wales apart from other portal fantasy is, that "our world" is not elevated to any prominent position. The story is told through the eyes of Sophie who is a native of Ingary and for which Wales is not more than just the strange place, that Howl comes from. She does not even exoticise the place very much, as she is apparently willing to accept that the home of Howl just has to be strange. In fact the plot of the book could well do without including this door to Wales at all. At the same time I would not want to miss it from the book now. Even though it serves no immediate purpose within the book, it does something to the reader's perspective. It suggests that there is in principle a passageway from the world of the reader to the fantasy world of the book. And even though this suggestion is part of the book's fiction it can still work to slightly tickle the readers imagination into make-believe, that one day you might open a door that leads to a world of fantasy and magic. Jones herself mentions in an interview that her fascination with doors stems from this sort of escapist make-believe.
What was also not clear to me on my first read, is that this book can be read as a coming of age novel. Howl, Sophie and Michael are three distinct types of adolecents: Howl is an egocentric, unsettled, vain and impulsive over-achiever, who shirks any kind of responsibility. He is in short as much a wizard as he is a millenial, who tries very hard not to become an adult. When Sophie on the other hand magically aged before her time, she felt that her body now corresponded to her true self. Before her magical transformation sent her on a journey, she had already given in to her dull and boring fate of mending hats in the provincial town of Market Chipping. All youthful adventurousness and imagination about the course of her life was repressed by her believe, that as the eldest of three she was doomed to fail in finding her fortune. This means that Sophie tried so hard to be an adult, that she lost all youthfulness. Only after she is physically tranformed into an old woman, she develops a kind of devil may care attitude that allows her to embark on her adventure.
Michael as the youngest of the three finally seems to be a very balanced character in his relationship to adulthood. On the one hand, he is a dedicated student, reliable and responsible. After losing both of his parents he managed to take care of himself by pushing Howl to take him on as an apprentice. On the other hand his romantic infatuation with Martha is as intense as only teenage love can be. In fact, his character is so balanced, that it makes him the perfect sidekick for the more prominent and eccentric characters around him. Unfortunately it also makes him completely unremarkable.
A kid's fantasy novel about a young woman who's been suddenly aged 70 years by an evil witch. A quick and fun read, but I was struck by the overwhelming passivity of Sophie, the hero. This is the most passive, do-nothing protagonist since Clay in Less Than Zero. You keep wanting to yell at her to get up and act against all of the indignities that are heaped onto her. Outside of that, the settings in the book (including the Moving Castle itself) and the supporting characters of Howl the Sorceror and the hearth-dwelling fire demon draw you through the story. I'm not sure I'm recommending this book as a book, but I'll definitely be in line next year when Hayao Miyazaki's animated feature film is released.
