Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince


I've read all 5, but I haven't bought a single one - that's what friends are for. ;)

Personally, I thought her writing generally got better as she went on (the 1st book really wasn't that great), except for the 4th book which was too long and had Harry acting as an obnoxious stupid brat half the time. The 5th book is definitely my favourite, though.

I'll wait until somebody I know finished reading it and then borrow it from them. I never buy books if I can help it because they clutter up space - I have a huge library nearby so that's where I go usually.
 
I think I'll use my staff discount to pick it up after work. All I have to do now is to make it though an eight hour shift (at a till) without being told about the story.
 
When the Order of the Pheonix was released i was working at WHSmiths. I worked the afternoon shift so went in a little after opening and sat in a coffee shop going through the first chapters.

The managers had us all wearing cloaks and hats and had new name badges made for us with character names, i was Neville, go me.

I made it through the whole day not finding out who dies, when as we were closing up one of my staff mates blurted out it was Hagrid, i believed her so was rather taken aback by the actual unlucky sole!

134 pages read so far!
 
Well i finished it.

A totally spolier free review:

Overall, its a well written book. Harry is not a whining little girly bitch anymore, there are a complete lack of badly written parts, only once did i have to read something twice and that was on the last page and it turned out i just wasn't thinking right.

The major downfall for this though is that nothing really happens, if you've watched the news or have been unfortunate enough to overhear conversation, you already know what i would consider to be half the book.

As i said in one of my first posts in the topic, i increasingly feel like Harry's time at Hogwarts is there purely to get us to the end, where stuff can happen. This book is no exception, everyday life is the major feature of this book which i guess is why it still remains so readable, it could be anybodies life.

Ultimately i feel like this book is the what the hobbit is to the lord of the rings with regard to book seven. It feels like a bloody long introduction to whats going to go down in book seven, Rowling has left us on a bit of a cliff hanger at the end of the book and if i could read book seven right now i wouldn't be complaining. Rowling has now left us with some wholly developed character who i am totally drawn to.

A personal whine to finish things though... When the goblet of fire came out i was a similar age to harry in the books and could generally relate to how he was feeling, order of pheonix left me feeling a tiny bit out of touch but generally i still "got it", Half blood prince however left me looking at harry's actions and views with the similar sort of knowing smile of a sixth former watching a year seven's love life, i'm just getting too god damn old. hurry up book seven
 
Picked myself up a copy of the book for £8 after work, and nobody told me what happened, which was nice. This time I'm taking it more slowly than the last few times a new Harry Potter book came out, where I would read it in a day.

From where I was it seems like people were less excited about this book than the previous one. I don't know if this is a national thing, are people get tired of waiting so long for each installment?
 
the hype seemed pretty huge to me, i think that given recent events (g8, olympics, 7/7) it had somewhat slipped from peoples minds. i'm pretty sure its broken every record, national and international, with regard to sales speed so the hype is there.

having read a few reviews i'm agreeing with whoever called this the empire strikes back of the harry potter books. 1,2,3 were all very prologuely, 4 and 5 were totally a new hope and 7 has to be return of the jedi.
 
spray posted on Jul 17 2005 at 09:13 AM said:
A personal whine to finish things though... When the goblet of fire came out i was a similar age to harry in the books and could generally relate to how he was feeling, order of pheonix left me feeling a tiny bit out of touch but generally i still "got it", Half blood prince however left me looking at harry's actions and views with the similar sort of knowing smile of a sixth former watching a year seven's love life, i'm just getting too god damn old. hurry up book seven
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goddamn yes. parts of the last book were seriously cringe inducing
 
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c0ncept posted on Jul 17 2005 at 03:14 PM said:
goddamn yes. parts of the last book were seriously cringe inducing
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The whole Harry/Choe bits were supposed to be cringeworthy. Two quite seriously damaged teenagers with emotional baggage dating is a pretty funny situation.
 
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Just out of interest has anyone read any of the excellent fan fiction out there. Obviously there are lots of dross fics but there are some excellent ones too. If anyone is interested in reading any PM me and I can give you some pointers on websites and authors to try.
 
Hanz™ posted on Jul 17 2005 at 08:45 PM said:
I wash my hands of fanfiction ever since I accidentally read a slash fic... :blink:
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Mmmm yeah that I can understand. This is a fic I want to read that has awesome reviews but it's slash. The concept sounds decent too :-

"The Mirror of Maybe
The Mirror of Maybe is an incredibly detailed, intriguing, powerfully written story where Harry returns to Hogwarts as a 28 year old War Mage in his 16 year old body after spending 12 years inside the Mirror of Maybe. This story, is Harry/Severus slash, and even though usually that seems squicky, it isn’t so in this story, but instead is powerfully written.

28 year old Harry is a well characterized, realistic interpretation of what Harry might be at that age, the immaturities of his former friends, the authority of his voice as well as the power he has gained through being a War Mage. The author, Midnight Blue, obviously has a good grasp of thoughts and emotions as they are effectively used in this story.

Featuring one of the most well written Harry’s in the fandom, elves, as well as the whole Hogwarts crew, The The Mirror of Maybe is a brilliant piece of work that doesn’t need any more description for it is a must to read for everyone"
 
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