Review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (No spoilers)
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Note: The following review contains no spoilers. Please be sure any comments you leave don’t either.
HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE by J.K. Rowling (Scholastic, $29.99) will be noted for the sharp, dark turn it takes. Although each of the previous five books, it has been noted many times, is progressively more serious, this one is by far the most adult.
In this next-to-last installment, we meet up with a 16-year-old Harry during his sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Along with Ron and Hermione, he continues his now N.E.W.T. level studies. Nearly finished with their schooling, the students are allowed to pick and choose which subjects they pursue, leaving room for much more individuality and freedom than before. Not that academics is the focus here.
Previous installments have followed much more closely the school-boy dramas and later the Ministry of Magic politics that swirl around Hogwarts. But this year, we find Harry much more concerned with his continuing life-and-death struggle with Lord Voldemort and his followers and much less worried about his potions final.
Those readers who have come to revel in the descriptions of the Halloween feast and Christmas decorations will find little of that here. Characters, however, will come into much sharper focus. Those students and teachers who have been largely two-dimensional will gain much more depth. Rowling, as Harry ages, is allowing him to see the short-falls and layers of the adults that surround him, much as a child learns that his parents are imperfect.
This is, by far, the bravest book of the series from a plotting standpoint. Rowling has said many times publicly that there will be more deaths. And there are. But what’s more, there are revelations. Motives became clearer. The lines between light and dark blur. Not all fans will be happy with the way things go. And parents should know, the language used in this book is coarser and the romance steamier than in the past. I’m not sure this book is for the under twelve crowd.
In the end, this books is a ramp up. It’s structure is much looser than, say, book four. There is no Tri-Wizarding Tournament here to provide the main focus. You can almost feel the author gathering up the loose strings and pulling them tight, preparing – one assumes – to tie them firmly in a knot by the end of book seven.
HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE by J.K. Rowling (Scholastic, $29.99) will be noted for the sharp, dark turn it takes. Although each of the previous five books, it has been noted many times, is progressively more serious, this one is by far the most adult.
In this next-to-last installment, we meet up with a 16-year-old Harry during his sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Along with Ron and Hermione, he continues his now N.E.W.T. level studies. Nearly finished with their schooling, the students are allowed to pick and choose which subjects they pursue, leaving room for much more individuality and freedom than before. Not that academics is the focus here.
Previous installments have followed much more closely the school-boy dramas and later the Ministry of Magic politics that swirl around Hogwarts. But this year, we find Harry much more concerned with his continuing life-and-death struggle with Lord Voldemort and his followers and much less worried about his potions final.
Those readers who have come to revel in the descriptions of the Halloween feast and Christmas decorations will find little of that here. Characters, however, will come into much sharper focus. Those students and teachers who have been largely two-dimensional will gain much more depth. Rowling, as Harry ages, is allowing him to see the short-falls and layers of the adults that surround him, much as a child learns that his parents are imperfect.
This is, by far, the bravest book of the series from a plotting standpoint. Rowling has said many times publicly that there will be more deaths. And there are. But what’s more, there are revelations. Motives became clearer. The lines between light and dark blur. Not all fans will be happy with the way things go. And parents should know, the language used in this book is coarser and the romance steamier than in the past. I’m not sure this book is for the under twelve crowd.
In the end, this books is a ramp up. It’s structure is much looser than, say, book four. There is no Tri-Wizarding Tournament here to provide the main focus. You can almost feel the author gathering up the loose strings and pulling them tight, preparing – one assumes – to tie them firmly in a knot by the end of book seven.
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