The House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones

Synopsis:
When Charmain Baker agreed to look after her Great uncle's house, she thought she was getting a blissful parent-free time to read. She didn't realize that the house bent space and time and did not expect to become responsible for an extremely magical stray dog and a muddled young apprentice wizard. Now somehow she's been targeted by a terrifying creature called a lubbock, too, and become central to the King's urgent search for the fabled Elfgift that will save the country. The King is so desperate to find the Elfgift, he's called the intimidating sorceress named Sofie to help. And where Sofie is, the great wizard Howl and the fire demon Calcifer can't be far behind. How did respectable Charmain end up in this and how will she get herself out?

My Rating: 5/10

My Thoughts:
I was so excited for this book, because I loved the first two. I was even more excited when I found out the main character was a bookworm, which is my favorite type of character. However I was soon disappointed to discover that Charmain is just annoying. It is never explained why she has not been allowed to do anything all her life, except that everything she doesn't know how to do, like cooking and laundry, is considered unrespectable by her mother. And rather than learn how to do all these things now that she is on her own, she just ignores them. It made it very hard to care about her.

Besides the main character I didn't really like any of the other characters either. I can't describe exactly what it was about them, but they all annoyed me to no end. Perhaps it was their simple mindedness, or the fact that they never seemed concerned by major crisis, but I couldn't stand them.

The final issue I had with this book was that Charmain seemed to have no real purpose to the plot. In the end everything was resolved and Charmain did nothing. She was simply there to witness.

Overall, it was a quick read, but it really did not impress me.