First Published: 2005

Rating: Average

"It was nearing midnight and the Prime Minister was sitting alone in his office, reading a long memo that was slipping through his brain without leaving the slightest trace of meaning behind."

I may as well come out and say it: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is, in my opinion, the worst of the Harry Potter series to date. Yeah, I'm still bitter about the whole Sirius thing from past books. But I'm not holding that against this latest one; it managed to disappoint me all by itself.

You know the story by now: in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, we find our scar-bearing young hero first at the Burrow and then at Hogwarts, where he gets special attention from Dumbledore, ponders the identity of the Half-Blood Prince while using said character's potions book in a somewhat unethical manner, moons over the current object of his hormones' affection, learns more about Voldemort, and suspects Draco and Snape of being up to no good. A major character dies. 

So really, apart from that whole Half-Blood Prince thing, they're the same basic themes that run through the other books--only this time, there's not much of the window-dressing that fans have come to love. And really, no plot to speak of.

I'll cut Rowling some slack--this is the sixth novel of a seven-novel series, and she's got to make sure all her pieces are in place for the endgame. For the reader, that means a lot of watching things fall into place--but it didn't have to be as disconnected as the Half-Blood Prince is. Plot threads are picked up and dropped, characters that previously seemed destined for bigger roles end up being ignored, and even the title character (that's our mysterious prince, not Harry) ends up being brushed aside. The plot doesn't become something urgent until the last few chapters of the book, and even then, we're treated to the slower of two concurrent threads. What plot does exist is fairly predictable.

These issues in themselves were disappointing, but what really got me down was the lack of those little things that made me love the Harry Potter books. In the Half-Blood Prince there are few of the low-key scenes that usually serve to break up the tension of knowing there's an evil wizard gearing up to crush our beloved heroes. I've always loved those little glimpses of life at a magical boarding school. The house-elves, the Gryffindor common room, the classes, Christmastime at Hogwarts, Hedwig and the owlery.... Those are all present in the latest book, but in minor doses--and since these are the touches that make the Harry Potter world special for many of us, the Half-Blood Prince seems to be missing something.

What it's not missing is words. I'm firmly in the camp of those who believe that Rowling's editors are, for whatever reason, failing to cut her tomes down to size. As in the last two Harry Potter books, there is a great deal of meandering about and unnecessary exposition--the first chapter of the Half-Blood Prince is interesting, sure, but nothing Potter fans couldn't live without.

But regardless of its flaws (and calling them flaws is entirely subjective), Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is going to be picked up and devoured by readers the world over for years to come. So will the final book in the series, since Rowling did plant some delicious seeds of doubt about various characters and their motives. These alone are worth plowing through six hundred pages of slow reading for. Still, Rowling's talents with characterization aren't enough to keep Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince from feeling like filler.

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