Book Blog #107: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling

Title: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Author: J.K. Rowling
# of Pages: 652 (hardback)
Genre: YA, Fantasy, Adventure
Rating: ★★★★★
Synopsis: The war against Voldemort is not going well; even the Muggle governments are noticing. Ron scans the obituary pages of the Daily Prophet, looking for familiar names. Dumbledore is absent from Hogwarts for long stretches of time, and the Order of the Phoenix has already suffered losses.

And yet, as with all wars, life goes on. Sixth-year students learn to Apparate—and lose a few eyebrows in the process. Teenagers flirt and fight and fall in love. Classes are never straightforward, though Harry receives some extraordinary help from the mysterious Half-Blood Prince.

So it's the home front that takes center stage in the multilayered sixth installment of the story of Harry Potter. Here at Hogwarts, Harry will search for the full and complex story of the boy who became Lord Voldemort—and thereby find what may be his only vulnerability.

Review: Oh jeez. The Harry Potter series really does evolve from the first book to now into something different.

I had almost forgotten that this book was the one that contained Dumbledore's death, although I did remember before it happened. But I had forgotten that Snape was the one to do the deed, so it was a shock when I read it. I thought it was something involving the Horcux, like during Dumbledore and Harry's adventure to retrieve it.

The retrieval of Slughorn's memory did not seem to be as crucial as Dumbledore depicted it to be. Although it does a great job of explaining what Horcruxes are to the reader, it only serves Dumbledore in telling him how many Horcruxes Tom Riddle created. But I don't think even Dumbledore could have been sure that Tom would have mentioned that piece of information in his conversation with Slughorn. Harry on his own would have found the memory extremely beneficial as he does not know what Horcruxes are up to that point, but Dumbledore could have just as easily told him.

On a lighter note, here are some quotes that I liked!

"On the other hand, the Prince had proved a much more effective teacher than Snape so fat" (Rowling 239).

I really liked this quote because it's humorous to those who have read the book more than once (or have somehow found out that Snape is the Half-Blood Prince). After all, the Prince and Snape are the same person.

"...what if Ron and Hermione started going out together..." (283).

I love this mostly because I love HermionexRon. End of story.

Yes...recommended!