Book Review: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (Two Thumbs Down)

By Angsuman Chakraborty, Gaea News Network
Wednesday, July 20, 2005

I am very disappointed.

The storyline especially the death looked very contrived; the death was as if publisher (or someone else) forced Mrs. Rowling to kill someone important and he was chosen. The logic behind the sequence of events were very flimsy. Also the death takes away the factor that holds together the tomes.

Overall it appeared too much planning but less heart has gone into this volume. As if it was a desperate attempt to pensieve all the storyline together and bridge the apparent puzzles.

In this book you will find several characters behaving much different from their normal style and capabilities and they are not under any spell either AFAICT. That really make it a painful reading at times.

The book ended without any direction. Unlike the other books in the series it was pervading with a sense of fear all throughout. In the previous volumes there were a lot to go on with the storyline other than Voldy factor. This was all about Voldy, about his early life, killings and death etc. At some point Mrs. Rowling has stopped writing for children. Frankly I am at a loss as to the target audience. My overall impression was that little inconsequential events were thrown in simply as an interlude. If I were to name it I would name the tome as - Tribute to Voldy

In conclusion I must say that if you haven’t bought it yet, don’t bother. It’s a waste of time and money. Go outside and bask in the sun with a picnic basket instead.

I think I know what will happen in the final volume and how Voldy will die. Half Blood Prince will spring yet another surprise at the end of volume eight completing the final piece of puzzle.

Oh one parting thought for Mrs. Rowling. Please don’t write detective stories. It’s not your style.

PS. And don’t even get me started on the strange logic (if there is one after all) of horcruxes and why it was just not simpler to kill the main-Voldy first instead of his bottled away parts later on at leisure. And the incessant arguments between Harry with his Scooby gang, who for some strange reason has suddenly lost faith in Harry, is boring to say the least. Oh yeah there are some predictable romances with tons of “snogging”. At least I learnt a british slang.

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Discussion

kayte
November 28, 2008: 7:53 am

first of all i would like to point out that harry potter and the half blood prince happens to be my favourite book out of all of them. and you said somewhere in that waffle that J.K has stop writting for children, well being a CHILD myself i happened to think that this book has been a great succes, me and my best friend read the harry potter books and we agree that this book was all about the characters fitting in and hormones raging.
which is perfectly suitable for the characters ages. you cant seriously expect harry potter and his firends; an age range of 15-16 year olds, to be as innocent as they were in previous books?!?!?
if you do than you know nothing about teenagers!
the books have grown up with the characters as any good writer would make happen.
my mum has just finished reading harry potter and the half blood prince to my 8yr old brother and he cant wait to see the movies as his favourite character ‘ron’ gets his first girlfriend and harry and ginny become a couple
so just to wrap up this very long paragraph, i think you should not be a writer because you obviously dont know what your talking about

p.s: the word ’snogging’ is only used when the kiss doesnt mean anything to you, when its special you describe it differently, like the way J.K did in her book, which was sweet and romantic, and i would know, im the king of slang being a 14 year old girl

get a real life….you non-talented loser xx


Kimberly
August 1, 2008: 4:22 pm

first of all, i would like to say that as the characters in the story grow, the target audience does, too. the later books are more in depth than the first few, but i like that about this series. secondly, i realize you wrote this before the series finale, but i hope you found that each “interlude” wasn’t forced, but a necessary part of the overall plot. thirdly, what’s painful to read is all of your spelling and grammar errors. learnt? i guess you didn’t.


Arash
November 2, 2005: 10:30 am

here u can read Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince : https://

[[URL Edited because a. I do not condone the illegal activity and b. The site doesn't exist yet]]

July 30, 2005: 11:28 pm

I’m also quite disappointed with the story. It deviates from the previous style.

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