"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" by J.K. Rowling

 

            The following is a review of the NOVEL “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” by J.K. Rowling. It is NOT a review of the MOVIE.

            Harry Potter is a sixteen-year-old boy, who also happens to be a wizard. He lives with his magic hating family Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, and cousin Dudley Dursley after his parents were murdered by the most evil dark wizard of all time, Lord Voldemort. He attends the magic school Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and is going into his sixth year. His best friends are Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. His worst enemies are fellow student Draco Malfoy and Professor Severus Snape.

            Lord Voldemort was diminished of his power after attempting to kill Harry and having his spell bounced back at him. He has since returned to his full strength. Harry was witness to Voldemort returning to power, but for the past year been accused of lying and possibly insanity. Now the Ministry of Magic has seen the restored Voldemort, and Harry is now believed to be “The Chosen One” who will end Voldemort once and for all.

            The Wizarding World and the Muggle World have been separated, and the muggles are unaware of the true existence of witches and wizards. Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge has been replaced by Rufus Scrimgeour. However, Voldemort’s follower, the Death Eaters, have been attacking the muggles, and Britain’s Prime Minister has been made aware of this, after the mysterious occurrences.

            Draco Malfoy has been given a task by Voldemort. Draco’s father Lucius has been arrested for being a Death Eater and now resides at Azkaban, the wizards’ prison. Draco’s mother Narcissa makes the Unbreakable Vow with Snape for Snape to protect Draco and make sure Draco succeeds in his mission.

            Hogwarts’ Headmaster Albus Dumbledore arrives at Harry’s home of Number 4 Privet Drive to take Harry from the Dursleys to spend the rest of the summer before the Hogwarts term begins with the Weasley family’s house, the Burrow. Dumbledore takes Harry on a mission along the way to convince Horace Slughorn, a former teacher at Hogwarts, to return to his post. Harry succeeds. Dumbledore also tells Harry that Harry will be having special lessons with Dumbledore, but for what exactly they will be, Dumbledore has not disclosed.

            At the Burrow, Ron’s older brother Bill is preparing to marry witch Fleur Delacour, a fact that many of the other Weasleys are less than thrilled about. Harry also realizes he is developing romantic feelings for Ron’s younger sister Ginny.

            While shopping for school supplies at Diagon Alley, Harry, Ron and Hermione observe Malfoy entering the dark magic shop Borgin and Burkes and making an unsavory deal, what it is, they are not sure.

            While returning to Hogwarts on the Hogwarts Express train, Harry finds Slughorn developing interest in several students who have famous ancestors and inducting them into the “Slug Club,” and Harry, Hermione and Ginny are all brought into it.

            Harry has expected Slughorn to be the new Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor, a post that seems to be jinxed as the past five Defense Against the Dark Arts Professors have never lasted more than a year. However, Slughorn is the new potions Professor, and the new Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor is Snape. Snape has been a Death Eater, and claims to be reformed, something Dumbledore has forgiven and has placed his trust in Snape. Because of his past history, Snape had been placed as Potions Master, despite wanting the Defense Against the Dark Arts teaching position.

            The first five years at Hogwarts prepares students for their O.W.L.s exams. After the O.W.L.s, students move on the N.E.W.T.s level to prepare for their desired career. Harry wants to be an Auror, a dark wizard catcher, but his potions grade was not enough for Snape to accept him as a N.E.W.T. student, so Harry’s dream seems like it will not happen. However, Slughorn accepts Harry’s Potions grade and accepts him as a N.E.W.T.s student. Not having expected to be taking Potions, Harry had not purchased the new Potions textbook. Harry takes one from storage, a book which has been marked with notes on potion making by a person who called themselves the Half-Blood Prince. Harry follows these directions and becomes the top Potions student, Slughorn believing Harry to have inherited Harry’s mother’s talent.

            Harry starts his private lessons with Dumbledore. Dumbledore uses a device called a Penseive to show Harry memories pertaining to the history of Tom Riddle, the boy who would become Lord Voldemort.

            Harry has been promoted to be captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, a team which he must now assemble. Harry accepts Ron as Keeper, but Ron suffers from nerves and his performance is often spotty.

            While visiting the wizard village Hogsmeade, student Katie Bell comes into contact with a cursed necklace and almost loses her life, ending up in the wizard hospital St. Mungo’s.

            As Harry’s lessons with Dumbledore progress, Dumbledore shows Harry an incomplete and altered memory from Professor Slughorn, and Dumbledore tasks Harry with obtaining the true and complete memory from Professor Slughorn, a task that proves to be more difficult than Harry expected it will be. This memory may be the key to defeating Lord Voldemort.

            Despite Hermione’s objections, Harry keeps the Half-Blood Prince’s book, which ends up saving Ron’s life. It also contains spells that turn out to be rather dangerous.

            Dumbledore locates an object that is essential to defeating Lord Voldemort, a task that turns out deadlier than anyone would ever expect, and in the process, Harry discovers the true and shocking identity of the Half-Blood Prince.

 

            I do have to say that this ranks up there as one of my favorite novels. I know a lot of people that think “oh, Harry Potter’s a kid’s book.” In all honestly, I disagree. My Grandma (Rest in peace) started reading the “Harry Potter” series when she was in her eighties. (Sadly she passed away after only four books were published.) I knew teachers and staff when I was in college who were older and read Harry Potter. (Doctor Lutz, I DO NOT want to hear your take on Quidditch, thank you very much.) I will say that I grew up with Harry. I was in elementary school when “Philosopher’s Stone” came out, didn’t start reading until “Prisoner of Azkaban” came out, and by then, if you didn’t read “Harry Potter,” you were not cool. And Rowling is one of the few authors who can get kids to read a 600 page book. But I can look back on these books as a thirty-four-year-old and still heartily enjoy them. On top of that, there were a few words here and there that a little kid SHOULD NOT be repeating, but we won’t go there, this blog is G-Rated. Yes, these books are books kids can enjoy, but they appeal to adults as well. Rowling never dumbed “Harry Potter” down, she didn’t talk to the readers like we’re idiots, didn’t use little kiddie words as substitutes for adult words. I just think she wrote “Harry Potter” as high-quality, fun, exciting, interesting, and compelling books, each with their own mystery which unravels as you read the books, with surprise twist endings. The identity of the Half-Blood Prince rather surprised me, and I’m a writer myself who writes twists and turns, and I feel like I probably won’t rank anywhere near the popularity Rowling gets. But to me, to call “Harry Potter” kid’s books is just not accurate. I get also that certain religions and beliefs find these books to be sacrilege and blasphemous (I’m Catholic and I don’t feel that way), but if a person enjoys fantasy books, these are good reads. Honestly, if you’ve seen the movies and enjoy them, I feel like the books are so much better and worth the long hours to put into reading them. I always felt the books went at a perfect pace, didn’t linger too much on unimportant aspects but contained all I needed to know. I’ve honestly read “Deathly Hallows” at least eight times and still return to these books every once and a while, I enjoy the books that much. Not every writer can do that for me. I will say that if you want to read “Half-Blood Prince,” read the first five books in order or you will have no idea what you’re reading, Rowling didn’t repeat too much out of the first five books, so it’s essential to read all of them. And in all honesty, I feel like this review does not do the book justice. So if you’ve been reading my “Harry Potter” reviews and never read the books and enjoyed my reviews, you should totally be reading the books. And totally read “Deathly Hallows” if you’ve read “Half-Blood Prince.” (I can’t possibly see why you wouldn’t.) But, if you want to disregard me, feel free to. This review is all my opinion and I totally accept that you may not agree with me, and I totally think that’s fine. We all have our own opinions that we are allowed to have, so please, and I totally mean this, feel free to disagree with me, and you can even Tweet or comment or whatever you can do to let me know how you feel about “Harry Potter.” (No one’s done that yet and I really wish somebody would.)

            Now, I’ve been going on for over 1,500 words and you may be getting bored with me if you’re still here (and if you are still reading this, you are THE BEST!), so I’ll get down to the nitty-gritty: my numeric score! Every book review I do, I give the book a numeric score. I score out of one-to-ten. One means if you actually read this whole review, I think you wasted your time reading this and don’t even look at the cover. Ten means that if you’re reading this review and are interested in this book, buy it, ask for a friend to lend it to you, go to a library, just get your hands on the book and read it ASAP. As you can probably tell, this is not getting a low score as I’ve had nothing bad to say about this book. BUT! I just can’t quite give it a ten. I give it a nine. There’s just something, je ne se quoi, holding me back. I would honestly love to give it a ten, but I just can’t. I just don’t think it’s perfect.

            So, I’ve been babbling enough about this now, I’ve been typing for over an hour-and-a-half (these reviews literally take hours), my wrists are griping, I can’t feel my fingers, so let’s wrap this up, shall we? Okay, so, you’re here at the end with me. If you liked this review, keep coming back for more. I have literally done dozens of reviews of books on this blog (mostly Marvel Comics related) and have much more planned. I’ve already written reviews of the first five “Harry Potter” books (if you haven’t read them and liked this review, just go on back), and in a couple of weeks I’ll be reviewing “Deathly Hallows” so keep checking back for that. I also write short fiction and nonfiction from time-to-time, I write poetry, I have B’ings (if you don’t know what they are, just read one and you’ll totally hate me), I write essays and editorials (being a certified journalist but not actually working in the field), and other stuff. I post pretty frequently, I have two other projects sitting on my desk right now, expect them in the next three or four days, keep looking for that, you can probably find something else to like on this blog, so stay tuned, and as always, ‘til next time, Tim Cubbin… out!