Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Sunday, July 17th, 2005Well, 24 hours after I received my copy of J. K. Rowling’s latest novel, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, I’ve finished reading the book.
Rowling’s style of writing has definitely matured (or she has found a better set of editors). At first, I was surprised by the size of the novel — the length of the previous books in the series seemed to growing at an alarming rate. I feared that the latest book would be longer than my Quantum Chemistry textbook. Surprisingly, and thankfully, this installment is nearly 200 pages shorter than its predecessor.
The story seems more carefully planned. There are fewer sudden interruptions in the text by action sequences, and character and plot development play a more central role in this novel. Unfortunately, Rowling felt the need to replace most of the normal interaction between Harry, Ron, and Hermione with extended dialogues (well, more like monologues) between Harry and Professor Dumbledore. I quickly grew weary of these contrived exchanges.
All in all, though, this book is nearly my favorite in the series.
BEWARE! Spoilers follow below: