Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
I’ve decided it’s not enough to maintain a ‘What I’m Reading’ block as I do on my blog, and not make some better effort to offer some thoughts about the books after I have read them. And so, I’m going to try and do that now.
And the first of the newly regular book reviews will be Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. I didn’t start reading Harry Potter books until well after the third one. Only after they had become the phenomenon that they are did I decide I needed to get caught up and find out what the fuss was all about. Having finished the latest, I’m all caught up again. My problem is my lack of any memory. Unlike my daughter, the Potter Encyclopedia, I can’t recount the details of the previous books as if I just read them, and so I struggle like a muggle to recollect what for Harry happened just the previous year, but that I read five years ago.
But even with that handicap, Harry remains an easy and fun read. Harry’s growing up, and has become a BWOC (Big Wizard on Campus – duh), and so is struggling with increased work and responsibility at school; tougher classes and being captain of his Quiddich team, the burden of having been labeled ‘The Chosen One’ who prophecy and previous experience says is destined for some epic battles to come, the attention and training that Hogwarts Headmaster Dumbledore gives him, and the fact that he’s matured enough to start noticing girls, not just any girl… Harry fancies his best friend’s sister. (I will resist the obvious temptation to insert any joke related to a wand in Harry’s pants here… better I don’t read such thoughts into children’s books).
All in all, I was a bit let-down by this book. To me it felt like it was all build-up, with little payoff. Obviously, with two books promised still in the series, it’s really just a chapter along the way in a bigger story. But the big news of this one… a major character dying, didn’t provide a satisfying ending. For any reader who’s gotten this far in the Potter books, you really can’t NOT read it, right? Just be prepared for this book to be a set-up with a big fat “To Be Continued…” at the end of it and hope for better in volume six.
<p>Personally, I felt like the entire book was *about* to have something big happen and then nothing… the entire thing was building towards the death of (that character), but then it just seemed so dragged out. I think it was interesting when (the person who was supposed to do it) showed how he could do all these other evil things, but couldn’t finally pull the trigger. I saw a glimmer of hope for him when he finally realized what was involved.</p><p>I’m interested to see what she’s going to do with the next book. There are quite a few items to track down now and now much time to do it. I figure that if Harry gets some other people involved – namely the Weasley twins and the Order – he stands a good chance of serving as a solid General and coordinating his forces pretty well.</p><p>0.02 from another Casey.</p>