Recently read

I finished "Howl's Moving Castle" yesterday, and I immensely enjoyed it. I bought it several years back, right after seeing the Miyazaki movie, but of course it languished in several bookshelves until now. (Except, of course, my boyfriend read it immediately.)

Well, the day after starting to read it I just HAD to rewatch the movie, to see how it tied in with the beginning of the book. It's so lovely when things are slightly different in the movie, and reading the book alongside to figure them out.
The second half of the movie then wildly differs from what happens in the book, probably because the "foreign world" of Wales would have been too weird for a Japanese film. ;) I liked it though, it was a good specimen of "people from a different world experiencing ours". It wasn't overdone, and had some nice touches, like Sophie thinking its an issue of life and death with the computer games.

For some reason, my boyfriend didn't like the ending of the book either (we both had some problems with the rather sudden ending of the movie, even though at least I should be used to it by now when watching animes), but I loved it. Everything is nicely solved, again without being overdone or overexplained, and I was completely happy.

I absolutely loved the way Sophie's magic worked, because you had to keep your eyes open to notice it. Great work.
And I like the style of writing...nothing is overdone, or overexplained, you have to keep thinking. Also, it somehow jumps along like a little girl with her skipping rope. It's always upbeat and funny and fresh and enjoyable. Never ever boring - really, there are no boring bits in this book. I wish I could write like that.

I think our (me and my boyfriend's) joint favourite character has to be Calcifer. He's beyond cute in the movie, and very funny in the book as well.

By the way, my cover looks like this - really lovely. And so fitting!