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Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6)
 | Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6) J.K Rowling Date: 2005-07-18 23:17:54 — $16.99 — Book Rating: |
One thing that impresses me about J.K. Rowling is that she really understands teens and how they develop. Angry Harry from Order of the Phoenix has evolved into a more mature and thoughful, less emotive but no less passionate character with an underlying wit and sarcasm. Harry and Ron remain boyishly obtuse compared to Hermione and Ginny, and the trials and tribulations of relationships remain a major (if predictable) plot device, because guess what - that's what's important to kids that age. It serves to remind readers that wizards are just like them.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince opens with an official overlap of the Muggle and Wizarding worlds. Excerpts from speculative news reports from wizarding newspapers serve to reintroduce old characters and recap the plot up until now. We find Harry still struggling with the death of his beloved godfather Sirius, but finding solace in friends. Spirited away from the Durselys this year by none other than Dumbledore (who deposits him at the burrow after a brief errand to recruit a new teacher), we get the obligatory visit to Hogsmeade before the new school year begins, more melancholy and fearful than previous years.
Now N.E.W.T.S., the sixth year students have the option to pursue their own courses of interest, but they are sadly mistaken if they think less classes mean extra free time, as the homework piles on. And on. And on. There's no time - or need, with a new Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor - for the D.A., but there is a new unofficial club at Hogwards: the Slug Club. Quidditch is squeezed in with new players, new captains, and new commentators. The sixth years goggle at how small the first years seem. Halloween festivities and Winter Balls and prefect duties seem to fall by the wayside, but Rowling shines when she describes the new plants, spells and potions the students encounter.
Also new on Harry's schedule are private lessons with the Headmaster. The Pensieve figures prominently as Dumbledore arms Harry with as much information about He-Who-Must-Not Be-Named as possible, recognizing that information is power, and will help when the time comes to fulfill the prophecy discovered in book 5, that "neither can live while the other survives."
In her hurry to get out a LOT of heretofore unknown background about the Dark Lord, the narratvie occasionally feels like too much telling, but Rowling effectively uses flashback to get the key points across. The last hundred pages are tense, breathtaking, heartwrenching, and unputdownable. It gets us to where we need to go in the final book. And the wait - and the re-reading - begins.
