Book Review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

I wasn't going to read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. In fact, I was so determined that I would not spend the time it would take to read the 500 plus pages, that I got online and found a plot synopsis the day after the book was released. I thought that knowing how this episode of Harry Potter's adventures ends would cure me of the need to read.

It didn't work. First off, my roommate bought a copy, so the book has been easily accessible in the apartment for months. Secondly, I'm supposed to be studying for a Tuesday night microeconomics midterm. Predictably, I started reading the book in earnest yesterday and just finished up.

With Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling has pretty much completely stopped writing books for kids. This story includes swearing, a lot of making out, plot lines about a knocked-up girl who dies in childbirth, boozing, the walking dead, and a lot of death in general, or discussion of death. The conversations the characters have about death were enough to freak me out a little. One of the character's comments about death being the great unknown, and the fact that it is the unknown aspect of it that causes people to fear death got to me. It's impossible to read this book without devoting some time to seriously thinking about what death means. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince does still include a few of the whimsical elements that initially made Harry Potter so popular (magical candy and what have you), but the vast majority of the focus is on more mature matters like who will hook up with who and bloody fights.

Though J.K. Rowling's writing was never weak, it seems like it is improving as she progresses through the series. It's true Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince does not have a satisfying conclusion. It feels rushed -- too many threads are left untied and some developments are hard to believe (perhaps this is intentional?) -- but overall the writing is better. For instance, in this book readers are more often given descriptions of characters behavior and expressions, than directly told their thoughts and feelings. And if J.K. Rowling is still writing her own books (working in book publishing makes me suspicious of such things) she is a total master of the page-turner. The Harry Potter books have consistently been extremely difficult to put down. Those who haven't read any of the books can ridicule the Harry Potter phenomenon as much as they like, but once you start reading one (especially the most recent volumes) you will keep reading.

Note: I am not arguing that Harry Potter books are life-changing literature, just good reading.