Fiction 25 Jul 2005 15:58
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
J. K. Rowling
No spoilers, read on.
This book is not quite like the previous ones. It is much, much darker, for starters. Throughout the whole story, even during the lighter moments, there is a general sense of impending doom. It is, pretty much, a prequel to the final book in the series, in the sense that many plots and subplots are opened and not many are closed.
As in the previous books, we are introduced to some new secondary characters, some of which look like they may be important later on. Also, the main characters keep developing as they grow up, and I think that this is being very well portrayed by the author. The characters are really changing as they go through their teen years (they are 16 in this book), and romantic relationships start to show up; the electricity between the four main characters (the fourth being Ginny, the Weasley’s youngest child) is palpable, and were it not technically a children’s book, I’d have called it “sexual tension”.
We also get to see a little bit more of the relationship between the magic world and the muggles, especially at the “politics” level; by the way, politics is an interesting sub-thread in the story, although not as important as in “Order of the Phoenix”.
It’s probably not a surprise that the main mistery in the book is “who or what is the Half-Blood Prince?”. This is not revealed until the final chapters, and by then you are so shocked by other developments that you don’t really pay much attention to it. It is an important information, though, and it helps us understand a lot about … well, something. This is best left unsaid.
The final chapters are very violent, and I have to say that the ending feels a little rushed. Anyway, I read the last 150 pages in one sitting, and I felt physically drained afterwards; if you feel at least some empathy towards the characters, the final few chapters will be emotionally hard to read. Be warned.
Word of advice: if you’ve read “Order of the Phoenix” a long time ago, you may want to refresh your memory of it.
