For a book aimed at children this is surprisingly complex story - there are a lot moving parts (see, what I did there?) In addition to the castle there are hearts, heads and entire bodies that are not where they are supposed to be, and hardly any character is what they appear to be on the surface! Even I had a bit of a hard time keeping track of everything…
Not that I’m unhappy with the book, it is enormously inventive and rich in characters and incident. I love the idea of the castle and the switchable door and I’m impressed that the author doesn’t talk down to her audience and characters are genuinely complex - Sophie herself is angry, grumpy and often makes the wrong decisions (can’t really blame her, suddenly being 90 years old after all).
I won’t summarise the story as almost nothing is what it initially seems so anything that I say will be a spoiler but we start with 3 fatherless sisters in a hat shop. Sophie, fully cogniscant of the world of fairy tales fully expects her life to be a disappointing failure since she is the eldest of the three, and for much of the story this is exactly what happens. But by the end much is resolved although I for one am happy to know that there are a couple of sequels because I do want to know what happens to Team Castle.
I’m also interested in re-watching the Miyazaki film to see how much of the book translates to the screen.
Finally, I didn’t really like the cover (perhaps expecting too much from recalling the beauty of the film), I think it is rather messy and unattractive, although another family member really liked it because of the colours, so each to their own I guess!
Expect to see reviews of the movie and the sequels at a later date…