House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones

[lightreads]

House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Not much to say. I didn’t grow up on DWJ; I was too busy reading things incredibly inappropriate for my age, like Heinlein and Dune and Watership Down (people who say that book is for kids are liars, Liars!).



DWJ stuck to her roots to the end. This is an aggressively cute kid adventure in an alternate magical world, with an ever-expanding wizard’s house and a kingdom to be saved. It all ties off at the end with an improbably neat bow. Very much the old breed of young adult, a little bit cartoonish, a little bit silly, but kind and safe right through. You know what I mean.





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Comments

[ecaterin]

Hmmm. I can't disagree with you in any way....but I felt satisfied by them both. Maybe because I've been absorbing Sam for so long I know what his short form is like and don't expect more? Big Plotting is still a weak point of his I think (but he'll get there).

My (very long) con-crit of Trace is that it resolves too easily, the characters aren't challenged enough, the story doesn't throw nearly enough obstacles in their way. NOT EPIC ENOUGH, was my diagnosis. In his current rewrites I know he's working on that as well as several other things I went on and on about - I have high hopes that the scale of the story structure will have grown to match the epic-ness I sense lurking in the story.