Well... that was a good deal more chaotic than I was expecting. I have seen the Studio Ghibli adaptation a fair few times, so I knew the rough outline of the plot going into reading the book. I also knew that, as usual, things had to be trimmed for the adaptation so I was expecting more in terms of detail. I was not expecting a whole rather important chunk of plotline to have been cut for time/content.Howl's Moving Castle is wonderfully magical and quite fun. I enjoyed most of the stuff that got trimmed for the movie. The tether to the "real world," as it were, was wholly unexpected. I love Sophie's sisters. I do find it a little odd that Martha wouldn't have told Michael to stop calling her Lettie at some point, but apparently that's not a thing for some reason. But otherwise, their inclusion and deceptions were cute.
I found the Witch of the Waste and her demon rather one-note, as far as antagonists go. They really weren't all that interesting in the long run. Now what they did was horrifying. I also feel like the sudden "and then everything just sorted itself out"-ness of the ending was somewhat jarring. Kind of expected more out of that, but I guess I'll just have the wait for the sequels to see.
Mostly, the book was just about as cozy as the adaptation. I quite enjoyed the ride. Also, my edition (The 20th Anniversary Deluxe Limited Edition) of the book is absolutely gorgeous. I love the end-paper art, even if I will never see Calcifer in any other form than the Ghibli version, no matter how often his green hair is mentioned.
