Half-Blood Prince

After reading about a hundred pages of my new book on Sat., I proceeded to simply finish it off over 13 hours on a long, cold, rainy Sun. (I had to get up early to take Daniel to the airport – this added extra reading time. :)) Such practice is, I grant, rather uncharacteristic. I am the sort of person who takes a rather long time to read a book and I therefore don’t normally have time to read a whole one in one sitting (not since about 7th grade, that is :)).

I savored each word, yet couldn’t keep from scarfing up paragraph after paragraph… so I finished the whole thing… I think, maybe, this is what a boa constrictor feels like after eating a whole deer or some such. Anyway, I now feel like talking about it – but I’ll try to keep it to general/cryptic terms for those of you who haven’t finished yet.

At the most basic: I think Em’s theory about the odd-numbered books being best is probably right. This one, while good, wasn’t up to par with, say, books 3 and 5. But it was obviously not awful, either, since I spent all day reading it :).

The cons:
It lacks, in many places, some of the rich detail (without long descriptions) that the other books possess.
It gets stuck in a little bit too much character interaction and not enough action and movement. Yet one facet of interaction conspicuously missing is that between the students and the adults/professors (which I had always liked). Most of the scenes focus solely on the trio and their satellites. Because of this phenomenon, the plot seems “looser” than the others.
And then there’s the ending/climax… I had best keep my commentary to the fact that I saw it coming, but hoped it would be effected in a more favorable manner, since they are my favorite characters. (Yeesh, how’s that for vague?)

The pros:
Harry is not angsty and annoying anymore! He’s actually matured! *and there was much rejoicing* Seriously, this is enough to outweigh much of the cons.
Some of the chapters were real gems. Numbers 22 and 23 set me off philosophizing, which is, for me, the sign of a good novel :).

Random comments:
They need to teach Latin at Hogwarts. That would have prevented a certain… “mistake.”
When I see/hear my name, I assume that I’m the one being referred to, since not many people in the English-speaking world bear it. I am continually weirded out, therefore, when I see it in print and applied to even a minor character.

This concludes my general opinion :). Those of you who are going to read it, please, please, please, finish it soon so we can get on to the more interesting details :).