I should add, btw, that Fire & Hemlock is DWJ's darkest and most complex book...
Complex isn't an issue. I was tested as reading at "college level" when I was 12, and have never stopped being a voracious reader. Dark might be more of an issue. I've just recently been discussing in my own journal with a friend how I tend to prefer stories that have if not a "happily ever after" end at least a hopeful end.
...adult readers can sometimes bounce hard off the child-adult romance in it.
Thanks. I can be sensitive to age differences in romance, but they aren't an automatic deal breaker. It's very much a combination of how the age differences are presented, and the romance itself is handled.
Howl's Moving Castle, though, is mainly just being subversive about fairy/folk tale tropes and turning them on their heads...
I suppose I should ask the basic question, "Do the books a) have female protagonists, who b) save male protagonists?" In Tam Lin proper Janet saves Tam Lin from the Fairy Queen, and in the film version of Howl's Moving Castle Sophie saves Howl by getting his heart back to him. I love fairy/folk tales, but not in the "Prince rescues princess" way people think of them from watching Disney films that seem to work that way. I like the stories where the girl rescues the guy, whether it's Tam Lin, the Beast, or the Frog Prince getting rescued. I have realized that I love the Disney versions of The Little Mermaid and Rapunzel because in those stories they have the protagonists rescue each other.
no subject
Complex isn't an issue. I was tested as reading at "college level" when I was 12, and have never stopped being a voracious reader. Dark might be more of an issue. I've just recently been discussing in my own journal with a friend how I tend to prefer stories that have if not a "happily ever after" end at least a hopeful end.
...adult readers can sometimes bounce hard off the child-adult romance in it.
Thanks. I can be sensitive to age differences in romance, but they aren't an automatic deal breaker. It's very much a combination of how the age differences are presented, and the romance itself is handled.
Howl's Moving Castle, though, is mainly just being subversive about fairy/folk tale tropes and turning them on their heads...
I suppose I should ask the basic question, "Do the books a) have female protagonists, who b) save male protagonists?" In Tam Lin proper Janet saves Tam Lin from the Fairy Queen, and in the film version of Howl's Moving Castle Sophie saves Howl by getting his heart back to him. I love fairy/folk tales, but not in the "Prince rescues princess" way people think of them from watching Disney films that seem to work that way. I like the stories where the girl rescues the guy, whether it's Tam Lin, the Beast, or the Frog Prince getting rescued. I have realized that I love the Disney versions of The Little Mermaid and Rapunzel because in those stories they have the protagonists rescue each other.