A review by the_gandy_man
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling

3.5

Weakest HP book so far. It has a lot of good stuff, but it had trouble keeping me interested at various parts. It's very messy. There's a lot of bloat. SPEW stuff is still bad. The whole sequence in the

Department of Mysteries

kind of doesn't work. It's just kind of unclear and drawn out. Rowling still has never failed to include The Part Where Everything Is Explained For Way Too Long. Harry is angry basically the whole book. He has every right to, but it gets tiresome to read. It's incredible that at the end the plot hinges on

Harry failing to contact Sirius via floo powder after Sirius had given him a gift specifically for contacting him. Pretty lame that Sirius died just because Harry forgot about the object he had meant for that exact purpose. And then when he finds it later, he doesn't think "I'm a fucking dumbass I should've just used this. Not only would it have been more reliable, it would've been quicker and easier." He just thinks he can use it to talk to dead Sirius now. Idiot.

Umbridge is a very well-done hate-able character. I like how Fred and George get to become successful and their big departure from Hogwarts. I think the family dynamic with Percy is interesting. I like Sirius a lot in this book. I like how he isn't quite the father figure Harry wants him to be. He sees too much of James in Harry. He's too irresponsible. Harry learns a lot about his dad in this book through Sirius and Snape, and learns he wasn't as perfect as he thought, and this affects how Harry sees himself as a person separate from his father who doesn't need to live up to his father's example because maybe that example wasn't all great.