House of Many Ways
Howl’s Moving Castle #3
by Diana Wynne Jones
read by Jenny Sterlin

My rating: 3.5 / 5
Genre: Middle grade fantasy

Charmain just wants to be left alone to read her books, and when she’s sent to house-sit for her great uncle, she think she’ll finally be able to read as much as she wants. But this is no ordinary house. Charmain’s great uncle is a wizard and his house is full of magic, which, along with the young apprentice who shows up looking for Great-Uncle William, encroach on Charmain’s reading time.

I liked this book a fair bit more than the 2nd in the series, but not quite as much as the first. It did bring back some of the charm of Howl’s Moving Castle, but Charmain is not a terribly likeable character. She’s naïve and fairly selfish, though I can’t that it’s all her fault, since she was clearly brought up to be entirely helpless. Like the other books, the story meanders for a while, which got a little tedious for me. There are hints at the plot here or there, but nothing particularly solid, at least until it started to come together further into it. Plus, characters from the first book show up around halfway in, and I certainly enjoyed that (and they’re more “present” than they were in the previous book). Overall, it’s not a bad follow-up to the whimsical first book in the series, and for others who have read the first and wonder if they should read more, I’d say at least this third one is worth it. For me, I may someday re-read Howl’s Moving Castle, but I won’t feel the need to re-read the rest.

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