Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince
JK Rowling
(Bloomsbury)
The 6th book in the popular series is very much a mixed-bag. Some characters have seem to have lost their oomph: especially in the case of Hermione who has become a rather one dimensional whinger. In fact, she is such a lame female character one almost expects it to have been written by a male writer. This has by far the weakest plot of the 6th and might demonstrate that its time for Rowling to move on to other things. The book does not flow as well as the other books; coming across as a bit forced. That is not to say its a horrid book. Its just no where near as good as it could have been. Despite the Tome like length of the book there are some serious plot holes that it would have been nice to have filled. The Quiddich in the book seemed to be have placed there because it had to be not because it helped the plot along. Very much like the later in the Dune series there is frisson missing from this episode of the saga. Still it will sell oodles and placate fans until the next installment.
Rating: 3.5
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - todd
I am no huge HP fan, but I thot it started out great, and then it got way too wordy and slow with too much meaningless chatter among the supporting characters.
There wasn't enough action, and scenes were drawn out and lifeless, and there wasn't much dramatic tension.
This is nothing a good editor couldn't solve, but like Stephen King, she thinks more=better I guess, and she is too big now for anyone to reign her in.
Plus, why did Dumbledore make HP get the memory from that guy, when he already knew everything and more than the memory contained?
2 - mona
AD made harry get that memory because AD guessed that voldy had horcruxes but he wanted to know if his guess was right and to get an idea of how many horcruxes he might have!!
3 - Aaman
Marty has a particular knack for collapsing 600+ pages of books and 74 minutes of CDs into one dense paragraph - in this case, that's a good thing
4 - Andrew Ian Dodge
Aaman would you believe that my first reviewing gig was limited to 200 words for each entry? That habit has stuck alas.
5 - Rob Coulter
While I agree that HBP is a little weak in spots, you had to have had a heart of stone not to have cried while reading about Dumbledore's funeral. As for why Harry was required to capture the memory ... Dumbledore had to help Harry learn enough about Voldemort to be able to kill him. Alone.
6 - RC
I did notice that there seemed to be breaks in the writing of this 6 installment. Almost as if there was long breaks in which the writer could not come up with anything or did not have the same train of thought. The story would start to get good on an issue, then it would trail off and cover a weaker area of the story. I would have to say that you can tell the story is going in a new direction. I feel there was some empty holes in this story that needed to be filled better.
7 - chogiiiirl
I personally find HBP to be the best installment of the Harry Potter series. Not only has it filled in a lot of much needed detail about the life of Voldemort, but also how to defeat him once and for all. Also, Harry is growing up, and his actions have proved this in HBP. Yes, there are some holes left in the plot, because we have 1 more book in the installment left to be written! Not everyone is on their 3rd reading of HBP, so I don't expect everyone to share my opinion.
8 - bianca
The character development is what disappointed me most in HBP. The author was not consistent and realistic with the changes in her characters so they are now unrecognizable. Hermione is not anymore the logical, caring Hermione of the previous books. Now she's reckless and vindictive, throwing tantrums just because Ron doesn't notice her in a romantic light. Harry's overwhelming guilt and feeling of isolation are suddenly gone. Instead of concentrating on how to defeat Voldemort, now he's mooning over Ginny when he has NEVER given her the time of day before. Ginny is another character whose development was contrived because she was a NOBODY in the previous books. Her character was speeded up to make her worthy of Harry so now Ginny has achieved an almost heroine status. In the author's effort to give her characters a "grown up" image, she has sacrificed realistic character development and the result was that HBP has become a teenage romance novel instead of the epic adventure that it was.
9 - Marty Dodge
Bianca I agree there is an element of thrown-together teenage romance in there that did not seem to work terribly well. I really don't understand why Rowling butchered Hermione so badly...she has become a truly dire one-dimensional character.
What does amaze me about the book is that despite its length there are such holes. I read the book in two days and found myself wondering how so much could have been left out of the plot.
10 - Bill C
Can't say that I find that much to disagree with in Marty's assessment. I, too, thought this book had the weakest plot structure of the series.
It seemed to suffer from a problem common in most multi-part epics. This book felt like it existed simply as a prolgue to the final book. It gave us the elements of back story we would need and it placed all the characters in the positions they needed to be in - but it lacked a singular driving force it could call its own. Neither the identity of the Half-Blood Prince nor the revelation of Draco's mission was really a full-fledged "plot" the way the Tri-Wizard Tournament or the search for Sirius Black was.
Romance is just not JKR's strong suit. I thought the romantic interludes in the previous two books were handled rather clumsily as well.
I really didn't find any other the character's acting too much "out of character," but as the father of a teenage daughter, I'm used to radical swings in personality from week to week.
That said, I still enjoyed this book more than Order of the Phoenix. Rowling has not lost her knack for creating vivid characters. I thought the story of Tom Riddle was well done. Dumbledore's conversation with Draco was very well-handled - and in perfect keeping with Dumbledore's character.
The book was focused so much on Dumbledore and Harry that I'm afraid we didn't get enough of the supporting cast (Neville & Draco particularly seemed to have very few pages devoted to themselves).
More than Harry mooning over Ginny, I got quickly bored with Harry's attempts to get into the Room of Requirement. She seemed to drag that out at the expense of other plot points.
That said, count me among those eagerly awaiting the final installment.
11 - Dawn
It is definitely not as satisfying as 3,4 and 5, but I think JKR was doing a bridge of the other five, to the final book. It was essentially a filler like you said, but it did have a shocking and nasty ending.
I give it a B-.
12 - david
i think that book 6 was good actualy i just think the fact of dumbledores death has shocked people e.g when every one first read the 5th book they said oh it got boring and how sad about sirus died and they said it was the worst book but after a year they started to like it and when you ask people now you did nt enjoy it at first they diney it you watch soon in my opion many more people will say this is one of the favorits
13 - Bill C
Well, I read Order of the Phoenix twice and my opinion of it didn't change.
It is my least favorite of the Potter books. I already like Half-Blood Prince better.
However, Goblet of Fire remains my favorite, followed by Chamber of Secrets.
Still, I have enjoyed ALL the Potter books. This one just wasn't in the top echelon. It had nothing to do with the death at the end. In fact, the final third of the book was the best part. It was the lack of unifying plot that made this a weak entry. That won't be changing upon re-reading.
Sometimes you just have to accept that not everybody likes the same things as you do.
14 - Boo
To me this book,The Half Blood Prince,could have passed as a great fan-fiction story but as a book I ... um... well...all I can say is J.K. Rowling should work harder on the seventh book because I was not as impressed as I would have liked in the 6th installment of the Harry Potter series.The characters seem to have changed Hermione doesn't seem to be the smart person in the old books she acted real dumb in that store Borgin and Burkes and I think Harry has depression or something because in the previous year he was always yelling and in this book he rarely got angry even when they were talking in the hospital wing about what happened in the battle and how he saw Dumbledore die...bottom line is... I was dissapointed in the book.
15 - Bill C
Just one thought on Harry's personality transformation in HBP.
I have a step-son (now 21). When he was 15, he was nearly impossible to live with - surly, rude, argumentative. One year later, at 16, he had matured into a well-mannered, quiet young man.
The change was so dramatic that my sister (who lives in another state and only visits once a year) even remarked that he seemed like a totally different guy.
So what some seem to feel was inconsistent behavior on Harry's part - may in fact have been very skillful writing on JKR's part, showing us that Harry is now a young man and not a child.
I do agree the Hermoione didn't seem very bright when she was in Knockturn Alley.
16 - DivineMsCupie
Hermione has horomones too!! It was a great read and what I enjoyed most was the Snape/Dumbledore/Harry build up...7 will be fantastic!
17 - Marty Dodge
Hermione has hormones...no one argues she doesn't. What some of us are gripping about here is the one dimensional nature of the writing about her.
This book sometimes veres between an after-school special on puberty and a fantasy book which happens to include teenages in it. I think most people prefer the latter to the former.
18 - snape
the book was definitely preparation for the last book. very enlightening.... but i agree with one of the comments, it has flaws. like Hermione suddenly being mediocre.. to sum it up still acceptable. but i would just like to share my view regarding snape... there are evidences that support what he did was dumblebore's bidding. there are: hagrid overheard snape and AB arguing about snape being over worked. my view here, he didn't want to kill him even should the circumstance ask for it; the hatred on Snape's face when he was about to kill AB because he didn't want to do it; Snape has knowledge of AB's quests for horcruxes for he helped him to counter the curse when he dealt with the ring. Snape was still teaching harry to do nonverbal and close his mind, though not in a nice manner, but still inspite of the situation, when he was about to escape. i still believe he just did what AB told him to do should the situation ask for it to save Draco, himself and help harry to be a better person as well as to make harry realized his final task.
19 - Marty Dodge
I have a question for American Potter readers. Are there two different covers in the US? One for adults and one for children? There are two in the UK.
20 - anitha
6 book is a very beautiful charterisation of harry,Ron ,Hermoine and Dumbledore. Harry and Ron transfermation in their iove life is very wonderful.
21 - with karate ill kik ur ass
ATTENTION ALL!!
i have started a 5 word story! if u would like to join in or see what it is just do the following:
clik on the 4th thread down on the harry potter page were u get all the threads.
down some were in the middle u will find phillip winn has made a link that will go to the five word essay. clik the coloured under lined words that he has typed that say the books open comment thread. go to that then go down and u will find were i have typed the rules etc.
sory for the confusing instructions its just that i can't find any other way of getting to it, u could ask phillip if u want!!
thank u!!
22 - Phillip Winn
The page to which Karate is referring is here.
23 - febe
Well, after reviewing many comments about J.K Rowlings 6th edition to the HP books. I would have to agree with some readers that this book did leave me feeling a tad disappointed. I felt that during harrys thrilling adventures she didnt include ron and hermione and made them look almost helpless and annoying as they did not lend any support to harrys theories or actions, he was all on his own. Harrys failed romance with ginny weakened the storys plot, I mean, where did she come from all of a sudden? She's "snogging" boy after boy which says something about her I wont get into. I just think that if she were to include romance in harrys life that it would be more developed as it just didnt seem to fit. Dumbledores death was sudden and didnt seemed insignifcant and the funeral was so short, I love harry potter and dont mean to sound as tho im bashing it but it seemed too rushed. I dont think the half blood prince did the second last installment the justice it desserved. Let us all hope that the 7th book is the book to end all harry potter books!
24 - Mandy
I dont think anyone should be too surprised about the romances.... After all, in the beginning of the series, they were 11. Romance wasnt the first thing on their minds. But they're older now, they're 17 (well, Harry's turning 17 in July...), so the way they act is obviously going to change in six years. With added hormones, there's gonna be change.
25 - Harry dead in 7th book
If you think harry is going to die in the 7th book type I.