Scan barcode
A review by littlecat
Castle in the Air by Diana Wynne Jones
adventurous
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.5
< spoiler> I really liked Howls Moving Castle and wished to have the sequel for my birthday blindly, now I regret it a bit.
The first thing that irked me was the sterotpyical orientalism at the beginning I though something would happen and invert it somehow, the first book does some clever things with fairytale tropes but there is none of that here.
And then the whole lot of fatphobia happens, there is love at first sight a trope i always disliked, and the sexism of the main character makes it really hard to root for him and his "romance", and the tone of the book for 2/3 of the run also felt like ... a downgrade, like it was writen for a much younger audience
the last 112 pages are better in terms of writing and now Sophie is there, and we do meet the princess and Flower-in-the-night gets to be a character (though main character does his best to ignore that) and I wish it had been there book instead, what a nice turn of fairytale tropes would it be to be about kidnapped princess from their viewpoint?
The first thing that irked me was the sterotpyical orientalism at the beginning I though something would happen and invert it somehow, the first book does some clever things with fairytale tropes but there is none of that here.
And then the whole lot of fatphobia happens, there is love at first sight a trope i always disliked, and the sexism of the main character makes it really hard to root for him and his "romance", and the tone of the book for 2/3 of the run also felt like ... a downgrade, like it was writen for a much younger audience
the last 112 pages are better in terms of writing and now Sophie is there, and we do meet the princess and Flower-in-the-night gets to be a character (though main character does his best to ignore that) and I wish it had been there book instead, what a nice turn of fairytale tropes would it be to be about kidnapped princess from their viewpoint?
Content Warnings
Moderate: Confinement, Fatphobia, Racism, and Sexism
It is very orientalism, very ninthteenhundered idea of "arabian nights".