{"id":3022,"date":"2005-07-29T19:56:31","date_gmt":"2005-07-29T23:56:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/vardibidian\/2005\/07\/29\/3022.html"},"modified":"2018-03-12T16:50:09","modified_gmt":"2018-03-12T21:50:09","slug":"book-report-harry-potter-and-t-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/2005\/07\/29\/book-report-harry-potter-and-t-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Report: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Although what with one thing and another, YHB hadn’t expected to read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince<\/a> for a while yet, it turned out that a copy came to hand almost immediately, and then there was this all-day car ride during which YHB and my Best Reader took turns driving and reading aloud. It worked out rather well, actually, although the first several hundred pages were padded to the point of boredom. Still, around about page eight hundred or so, it settled down, and the last few hundred pages were quite good.\n

Did I mention that the book is a trifle too long?\n

Anyway, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this one. Mostly, I liked Harry again; after spending that interminable year with him at fifteen, he appears to be a fairly likable sixteen-year-old. That makes a huge difference. There were also plenty of occasions for Ms. Rowling to do what she does so well, particularly the playful descriptions of magic gone not-quite-right. True, Hermione is the Amazing Disappearing Character, defined entirely by her relationships with men (and boys), but the book isn’t more<\/I> annoyingly sexist than most other YA books.\n

On the other hand, it was really very noticeable that there were no interesting female characters in this one. Prof. McGonagall, of course, has diminished to the point of invisibility, although there is some hope she will revive a bit in the last book. The opportunity to make Draco’s doxy interesting was passed up entirely. Molly Weasley was, well, Mrs. Weasley, and great in her way, but not terribly interesting. Tonks was (surprise!) defined by her relationship with men, as was Fleur (who showed no evidence of being a Beauxbatons prize pupil). There were a few minor characters who showed up for a scene, with the Dark Side’s Narcissa and Bellatrix, and Merope (or whatever her name was), and the poor woman who Tom Riddle seduces and kills. And there are a few plot-device females, notably Katie Bell, but really, if you were listing the characters who actually do anything in this book, it’s Harry, Prof. Dumbledore, Voldemort\/Riddle, Prof. Snape, Draco, and maybe Prof. Slughorne. What do they have in common? Oh, yes, dicks. Or at least secondary characteristics, as it’s, you know, for kids.\n

Which, I suppose, brings up Ginny Weasley, but really, did she do<\/i> much of anything? I mean, yes, she's a hot fifteen-year-old redhead, and Harry falls for her in a manner much less annoying than the whole Cho business, but I'd have a hard time calling her an interesting character.\n

But I’m grumbling. On the whole, a goodish book, far better than I expected it to be, and good enough to make me anticipate the next book with some pleasure. I oughtn’t complain.\n

chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek<\/I>,
-Vardibidian.\n<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Although what with one thing and another, YHB hadn\u2019t expected to read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince for a while yet, it turned out that a copy came to hand almost immediately, and then there was this all-day car…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[194],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-report"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3022"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17478,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3022\/revisions\/17478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}