Book Review: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

What follows is a review and doesn’t really contain any real spoilers.  BUT if your sensitive to that stuff, don’t read any further.

Rowling has penned another great story with Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.  This is supposedly the second to last book in the Harry Potter series (if Rowling sticks to the statement of only writing seven books), and it definitely sets up the last book well.

The theme of the book continues from the last book in which we learn of the prophecy concerning Lord Voldermort and Harry.  More information about the prophecy is uncovered and we learn a great deal more about the history of Lord Voldermort.  Dumbledore and Harry try to piece together how to triumph over Lord Voldermort and the Death Eaters by visiting memories of the past.  It’s an interesting view into how Voldermort thinks and what in his history exposes how to destroy him.

True to form, this book is darker than the last one and I would surmise that the last book in the series will be very dark indeed.  While some of Rowling’s fans have land blasted her for this increasingly mature story line, I think it is very well done.  As Harry gets older and accepts more responsibility, and as times get darker with the return of Lord Voldermort, it only makes sense that the story line gets darker and more complex.

That’s not to say that the book doesn’t have its lighter moments.  There are definite times where I laughed aloud while reading the book (the one boy having to do lines that said “I am a wizard, not a baboon with a stick” was one of the best one liners in the book).  Rowling does a great job describing what it would be like to have a school full of teenagers that can do magic.  Though, this is sometimes taken too far.  Considering what some of these teenagers have seen over the last few years you’d think they would be above some of the petty crap that goes on.  But yeah, they’re teenagers right?

As far as things I didn’t like about the book: As usual Rowling has to make the story last a complete school year, so things move pretty slowly.  In most of the books (save The Goblet of Fire) it seems that the story is “stretched” to fit the school year and could have easily taken place much quicker.  No matter how much Harry has been through it still seems that teachers don’t listen to him.  When he has suspicions to share they still down play them and do not react until it is too late.  Only Mr. Weasley seems to have finally decided to take Harry seriously.

Overall, it was a good book.  I still think that Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is still the best of the series, but this one rates up there.  I’m looking forward to the next book already.

Rating: 3 out of 5
Recommendation: If you liked the other books, you’ll like this one too.  It has some “surprises” in it and don’t look for a very happy ending.

FYI: The movie version of the fourth book Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is out this fall!  I still think they need to film a few of these back to back for quicker releases like they did with the LOTR movies.  The kids are old enough now that the change of appearance may hamper them if they keep spreading them out, but won’t hurt too bad if they look mostly the same over the last two or three movies.  But maybe they have studied the marketing scheme of George Lucas and extend the amount of time you can milk a series by pushing the movies dates out.