As a fair warning, I'm going to use the word "wonderful" way to often in this review. But this book is truly wonderful, so it deserves it. Howl's Moving Castle brought me so much joy just reading it. Although it took me a little while to get into it (maybe 100 pages), I absolutely loved it. Being a Miyazaki fan, I had seen the movie several years ago and loved it, so needless to say I had pretty high expectations for this book. I was not disappointed. Both are equally wonderful, if different in some ways. But on to the book review. 
 One of my favorite parts of the book was the characters. The main character, Sophie is in the very beginning cursed by the Witch of the Waste, but instead of freaking out and having the whole book being about her internal crisis of being cursed, she is practical (maybe a little too much so) and moves on to get help. There's also Howl. I admit the last book I picked up I put down after about ten pages because I was so sick of all male characters being muscular love interests and nothing more. I was so relieved that this book was nothing like that, thank goodness. Howl is vain, throws tantrums when he doesn't get his way, and really doesn't feel like dealing with any of his several problems. (In Sophie's words, he's a "slitherer-outer"). Yet somehow, he's still a character who's enjoyable to read about. And of course you find out more about him as the book goes on, and he has plenty of good aspects too. 
 And how could I even mention the characters in this book without talking about Calcifer? The disdainful, sarcastic fire demon just made me so happy, and had an interesting story. 
 I don't want to spoil anything, so as for the storyline I just want to say that it really picks up after about 100 pages, but the characters are enough to keep anyone reading until then. 
 You've probably had enough of me singing this book's praises, so I'm going to finish up. Basically, the story is wonderful and just as good as it sounds, the characters are wonderful, the book is wonderful, and you should definitely go read it.