Howl's Moving Castle: A Book Review

There are NO SPOILERS in this review. Enjoy! (:

Book review #5 of 2013!

I love all of Miyazaki's films. So I was amazed to discover last year that Howl's Moving Castle was actually an adaptation of Diana Wynne Jones' novel.  My friend lent me his copy and the rest, as cliche as it sounds and is, is history. If your read my post on my Favorite Reads of 2012 then you probably remember that I listed Howl's Moving Castle as one of my favorite reads. So it won't be so much of a surprise when you hear all my raving comments below. I hope you enjoy this review! (:

As usual here's the back cover description:

"Sophie has the great misfortune of being the eldest of three daughters, destined to fail miserably should she ever leave home to seek her fate. But when she unwittingly attracts the ire of the Witch of the Waste, Sophie finds herself under a horrid sell that transforms her into an old lady. Her only chance at breaking it lies in the ever-moving castle in the hills: the Wizard Howl's castle. To untangle the enchantment, Sophie must handle the heartless Howl, strike a bargain with the fire demon, and meet the Witch of the Waste head-on. Along the way, she discovers that there's far more to Howl-and herself- than first meets the eye."

2013 Reading List

I read 50 books in 2012, a goal set in early March of that year. Knowing that many New Year Resolutions don't make it past January/February, that makes me feel very accomplished. In my New Year Resolutions, I set the new goal of reading 60 books in 2013.

Sometimes I feel as if reading goals such as this are necessary for someone like me who feels like their reading list is never ending. It's overwhelming to think you may possibly never get to all the books you want to. Hopefully, by the end of 2013, 60 will get me through a lot of them.

Though I have listed only 22 books, many of these books were either series (The Maze Runner Series, Lauren Oliver's series) or general suggestions to read more works by a particular author (Austen, Murakami) so the reading list actually totals ~33. Though this is only about half of my reading goal for 2013 of 60, I am a very spontaneous reader (meaning I want to immediately read whatever I'm in the mood for regardless of how long books have been on any list- hence my love for browsing bookstores AND why it seems like I can never get to certain books) and loading up this list with books I really don't care for just for the sake of reaching 60 is senseless. There's a very good chance that ~25% of these books won't even get read by the end of 2013, but are instead replaced with books that I find completely at random.

That leads me to my next topic. I'm considering doing an updated reading list every quarter of the year to update on my progress through this list as well as new additions. So expect an updated reading list/progress by the end of March!

So, without further ado, here is my introductory reading list!

Favorite Reads of 2012

My ideal morning is waking up when the sky is gently lit by the sun and going for a morning run. And after jumping in the shower and making breakfast, I enjoy getting back in bed and reading a good book. The feeling is even more amazing when there's heavy rain that can accompany my books. So since 2012 is coming to a close, I thought there would be nothing better than to summarize my 2012 by telling you my favorites reads. 

Back in March, I decided that I wanted to read 50 new books by the end of 2012. Since then, I've changed the contingencies a bit. I decided to allow rereading books since discouraging the act of rereading was a bit ridiculous. With that strict rule, what motivation would I have had to reread The Hobbit, the book I read over a decade ago? Or, Fahrenheit 451 which I probably read about 8 years ago and barely remembered. I realized the rule was slightly too limiting so I changed it to this: books can count towards the 50, as long as they have been unread for at least 1 year. (So despite the numerous times I have read The Fault In Our Stars in the past 12 months, I counted it only once.)

I won't be listing all 50 books since 1.) a list isn't incredibly interesting unless I am able to comment on all the books in some way and 2.) that would take far too much time, and 3.) there were some books I read that I really don't care for and therefore don't want to waste time talking about them.

So the main thing I wanted to accomplish in this post was giving you 10 of my favorite NEW books that I read this year. Keep in mind, this was a difficult list to assemble and there were many books that I wrestled with adding/deleting from this list so if you know I read a book this year and didn't include in on this list (ie: The Casual Vacancy, The Handmaid's Tale) don't assume I didn't enjoy it as well.

But without further ado, here are my favorite books of 2012!