House of Many Ways

There is nothing I like more than sitting down with a Diana Wynne Jones book, especially with one that takes place in the Howl universe. For the final book in this series, we follow the adventures of Charmain, a sheltered girl with a bit of magical talent who has been asked to watch her wizard uncle’s house while he’s away being healed by elves. While she’s there, however, she stumbles into a bit of royal intrigue that Howl and Sophie are also helping with.

I really enjoyed this book. Charmain is a wonderful main character who doesn’t have a lot of experience with taking care of herself, but who is smart and capable of figuring stuff out as she goes along. It’s something that we all have to deal with as we get older, and Jones show more perfectly captures that feeling of “I don’t know what I’m doing, but let’s give this a try” perfectly. I also feel like a lot of readers can identify with Charmain because all she wants to do is rush through her chores so she can sit down and read her book. Her dream is to work in the royal library, which leads her to becoming involved with a mystery that Sophie and Howl are trying to help with.

There’s just enough Howl in it to make it a proper Howl book. I loved being able to see him and all the other Howl characters through Charmain’s eyes, and it’s nice to get an update as to how they’re doing by seeing them interact with each other.

What I found really great is how everything ties into each other and comes together at the end. All of Charmain’s random adventures through her uncle’s magical house help her in solving the major mystery that plagues the royal house. I loved being able to piece things together along with her and see the mystery unraveled.

Jones just has an amazing sense of humor and pleasant writing style that makes her books enjoyable–The House of Many Ways is no different. It’s funny, has lots of twists, and is incredibly relatable in a lot of ways. I highly recommend this for fans of fantasy.

Also posted on Purple People Readers. show less

House of Many Ways introduces a new set of characters, much like Castle in the Air did. Charmain Baker is our hapless heroine who gets more than she bargained for when she house sits for her Great-Uncle William, who also happens to be the royal wizard. All she wants to do is read! She doesn't want to be caught up in magic and adventure! (As a joke, Charmain is often mistakenly called Miss Charming, which she is decidedly not.) Charmain’s little get away in her Great-Uncle’s house is interrupted by the arrival of Peter, a wizard apprentice who can’t do magic correctly. He’s there to study under Charmain’s wizard uncle, as arranged by his mother. Too bad Great-Uncle William has been carted off by elves to be treated for his show more illness. Now there are two hapless people living in a house that is more than it seems.

House of Many Ways is another fun romp in the world DWJ's has created. If you’re looking for a book with great female leads who are more than just a Strong Female Characters trope, read this! show less

Charmain Baker is your average, respectable, young lady. She isn't allowed to do anything by her mother. So when she gets volun-told that she's going to watch her great uncles house when he has to leave for a few day for a medical procedure, she finds herself in a situation she isn't up to handling. Lucky for her, her uncles young apprentice, Peter, shows up a few weeks early.

Diana Wynne Jones is a great author for kids. She manages to write realistic children, kids who are smart, but young, plucky, but make stupid decisions. This book is no exception - we have a mystery of where the kings gold is. A boorish heir, who is not quite what he seems. Its cute.

However, i'm not a fan of the Howl disguised as a child, but I would have loved show more this plotline as a kid. show less

The third and final book set in the universe of Howl's Moving Castle. Of the three, I think this one is pretty easily my favorite; it has a good initial setup, a fun mystery, and alternating moments of comedy and suspense that keep the reader wanting to know more. Like the other two, it eventually speeds toward en ending reminiscent of a 1930s screwball comedy, with every major character somehow involved, but unlike the others, this one seems fully earned.

House of Many Ways also contains one of the funniest examples of the reader knowing something before the protagonist. It is immediately obvious, when he appears, that the blue-eyed, golden-curled child Twinkle is someone familiar in another form, and watching him wreak havoc is show more terribly, terribly entertaining. DWJ knew how to make a story fun, and there are no indications that - unlike so many authors - she was at any loss for imaginative ideas or intriguing plots even as she approached the end of her long career. show less

While I wish we saw more of Howl and Sophie raising little baby Morgan (I feel like they would be quite the pair of parents), Charmaine is a delightfully stubborn protagonist. Her constant desire to be reading a book was very relatable all while all this chaos is happening around her.

This review and others posted over at my blog.

I knew from the first couple chapters that I was going to enjoy this book significantly more than Castle in the Air.

Charmain is a bit spoiled, in that she’s never done any sort of housework or hard work and spends most of her time reading (though I think she does also go to school). Not a bad life if you ask me! Except that she has no idea how to house-sit and at first decides she’ll sit around reading. Despite being told to avoid the magical books set aside in her uncle’s study, Charmain decides to read one of them, and soon finds herself testing out a spell. After successfully learning to fly, she meets a disgusting creature called a Lubbock – it’s a humanoid bug thing that likes show more to lays eggs in humans and if it breeds with a woman she’ll birth a lubbockin (and then die) – and it promptly tries to lay eggs in her. Charmain gets away, but this incident makes her wary of performing more magic.

Charmain is likable, despite her semi-spoiled brattitude. She certainly grows throughout the novel and comes into her powers as well (a la Sophie in Howl’s). I will say though, that when I first read the back of the book, I read her name as Chairman Baker and thus, referred to her as Chairman the entire novel. Oops! Peter is the cute, bumbling wizard who does his best to teach Charmain how to function like a normal human. Surprisingly enough, there’s no love story here, and I quite enjoyed that, especially after the rushed romance in Castle.

Sophie, Howl and Calcifer return and play a much bigger part in the story this time, so that was fun. The plot was interesting and the lubbocks were disgusting and creepy. They made for great villains! There’s also a new kind of magical house, as Chairman’s Charmain’s uncle’s house has doorways that lead to different rooms and passages based on which way you turn through a doorway. It was kind of hard to follow, but I didn’t really need to know how the children moved to different rooms, just that they were doing it.

In all, this was a fun read, though not quite as enjoyable as Howl’s (not that I expected it to be) and I definitely recommend it. There is a cameo from a character from Castle, but you really don’t need to read that book to read this one. It does pick up from the end of that book, but has very little to do with those events. If you’re looking for more Howl and the gang and another magical house, pick up House of Many Ways! show less

I really enjoyed this one, though it felt like a younger book than Howl's Moving Castle. This felt MG while Howl felt YA. Still, even with the audience change (and that I skipped book 2 accidentally) I really enjoyed this read, and getting to see old friends (especially Calcifer) from a new point of view.