(Oh, Brynne, I ALSO adore Eowyn and Faramir! Actually Faramir is personally one of my hugest fictional crushes. Him and, curiously enough, Henry Tilney. I didn’t say Catherine is the perfect person for Henry Tilney, Justine, just that I, personally, am in LOVE with Henry Tilney! And I’m also another Howl/Sophie adorer, though that’s also likely a relationship I absolutely would not have understood as a child and would have selectively ignored. Luckily I didn’t read that one as a child, so I know better).

Though I do root for Sorry and Laura to end up together eventually, I want them both to continue growing up until that happens. Laura does end up inspiring Sorry to change, rather than simply curing him through love, but to have them end up together at the end of the book would be too much like saying that she “cured” him, reinforcing the cliché that women can reform men through simple devotion. Since Mahy has spent a fair bit of time saying that such changes must come from within first, that would be a bad ending to a remarkable book.

I also love Eowyn and Faramir, and they actually are given a lot of page time — at least more than other (cough cough) so-called “vaunted” romances in that book.

I remember when I read it for the first time, and Eowyn was in her coma, and I was like, “but she can’t die! She has to get better and marry Faramir!” And my husband, a longtime Tolkien fan goes, “What? Faramir? But she’s in love with Aragorn.” And I, who knew from my romances, laughed at the idea. She wasn’t meant for a demigod. The coolest human warrior in the book was meant for the OTHER coolest human warrior in the book.

Justine: YAY THE CHANGEOVER, FAVOURITE BOOK OF ALL TIME.

And I LOVE Diana Wynne Jones, too.

Some people would say I read too much fantasy. I say, “Nonsense!”

This makes me want to go and read it again.

Hurrah for more recommendations of The Changeover. I got a little bit angry when I studied Mahy for honours last year when people in my class did not appreciate the genius of Sorry and Laura.