Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, by J.K. Rowling

Retrieved from:
0439784549, 2005
Suggested by: Are you kidding?
My Ratings: 10 Merit, 9 Interest, 10 Fun

I think the universal reaction to this, if readers are honest, is going to be, "Well, I never expected THAT!" Although some people will have expected where Snape ends in this book, I have to say I'm somewhat disappointed, and hold out hope that it's all a ruse....

OK, having said all that, Harry is certainly much more mature in this book, there is very little discussion of actual schoolwork going on here (winter seems to pass, barely mentioned, in about 30 pages), Malfoy is up to some new tricks, and the students at Hogwarts seem remarkably ...uhm... adrift from the horrors that Voldemort continues to unleash upon England. That latter bit is really the most realistic bit of the book. Hermione and Ron finally get their emotional acts together, as does Harry (only to blow it, IMHO, in the last 5 pages).

Sadly, Hagrid, dear lovely wonderful Hagrid has only cameo interest in this book, with only the same amount of coverage as Professor Trelawny for heaven's sake (ha ha). There are a lot of dead ends here, bits of story that seem to go nowhere, and one really huge "Huh??!" toward the end, kind of "well, and what was the point of that??" Even Harry thinks so.

One thing I can't figure out: what's the big hoo-hah over this Half-Blood Prince. Yes, the book with that inscribed on it is critical to the story, but then the 'mystery' surrounding it is solved rather as a tossed-off nearly-missed-it comment at the end. I sure hope there's more to this issue in the next book! The title lead me to believe that The Prince would be central, and, well, no he's not, at least not as The Prince.

So this is another Time Passes, Decisions Are Made, Fateful Things Happen book, serving to whet our appetites for what had better be the last book in the series. I can't take too many more Harry Potter release date dramas.