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A review by stilestastic
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
5.0
[ 4.5 stars ]
“The thing about growing up with Fred and George is that you sort of start thinking anything's possible if you've got enough nerve.”
HBP was my favorite out of the movies, so I was really nervous to read this again because I couldn't remember exactly how it went (it's been six years, almost seven now, since I read these). Although I wouldn't say it was everything I was expecting, it was still fantastic!
For one thing, Ginny. Book!Ginny absolutely blows Movie!Ginny out of the water and I am still upset with how she was portrayed in the movies. Also, she and Harry had no chemistry in the film, which is different from this book. Their kiss was much more iconic than that awful one in the Room of Requirement that the film had. Ginny has so much spunk, so much vitality, that it's a tragedy how she was written onscreen. I think some of my favorite lines were ones from her.
One thing that was annoying was how little golden trio moments there were. It's exhausting reading so many pages of Hermione and Ron not getting along again. When they aren't working together, it's like the soul is sucked from the books. And with the fact that Hermione and Ron spend nearly the entire book ignoring each other, I quickly felt like something was missing.
Another thing I found weird was the "creature" that Harry kept describing when he thought of Ginny romantically. It was so cringey and weird. I felt like it was completely unnecessary to have in the book; there are other, more normal ways to show a character fancies another without saying that the creature inside of them wants to hurt anyone they kiss. I thought it was especially strange and sudden because this creature did not make an appearance when Harry spent the last two books pining over Cho (who still deserves better).
I liked the slow reveal of Voldemort's past and how much we learned about him in this book. The fact that people romanticize him because the actor who played his younger self in CoS was hot is still gross to me. This book, if it wasn't already clear enough from Harry's entire backstory, proves how much he sucks and how evil he is. The dude is a hypocrite; he's not even a pureblood and yet he thinks that pure-bloods should reign supreme? How did none of the people who knew him as Tom Riddle from Hogwarts not get confused? The pureblood line is apparently so small that most families would know each other and you would think that people would know that Riddle wasn't a pureblood surname? I have so many questions.
The "There's no need to call me sir, professor," line is the MOST iconic thing J.K. has ever written and you cannot convince me otherwise. It's absolutely incredible. Harry went into the hands of God himself. Snape was mentally crying on the floor, knowing he will never recover from being roasted so hard by a sixteen-year-old in front of the whole class. How everyone didn't immediately burst into laughter is beyond me.
Also: this book is proof that I will never forgive J.K. Rowling for saying that Snape was a good guy and decided to redeem him, but also turned around and said she doesn't understand why people like Draco because he was a horrible person. Draco had so much potential to be an amazingly well-rounded character. His arc could have been all about un-learning the horrible things your parents have taught you and becoming a better person to make up for your past actions. Did she forget that she wrote about Draco clearly not wanting to kill Dumbledore? Did she forget that Dumbledore himself said that if Draco had wanted to kill him, he would have done it immediately instead of talking so much? Did she forget that he said Voldemort would kill him and his family if he didn't do it? Did she forget that he started to lower his wand after Dumbledore offered to get him and his mother to safety? Then again, I don't really know what to expect from a transphobe like her.
The "Snape Sucks" count is somewhere in the 50s or 60s. I started losing track of the actual numbers and he wasn't very present in this book except at the beginning & end.
I'm both excited and scared for TDH!
“The thing about growing up with Fred and George is that you sort of start thinking anything's possible if you've got enough nerve.”
HBP was my favorite out of the movies, so I was really nervous to read this again because I couldn't remember exactly how it went (it's been six years, almost seven now, since I read these). Although I wouldn't say it was everything I was expecting, it was still fantastic!
For one thing, Ginny. Book!Ginny absolutely blows Movie!Ginny out of the water and I am still upset with how she was portrayed in the movies. Also, she and Harry had no chemistry in the film, which is different from this book. Their kiss was much more iconic than that awful one in the Room of Requirement that the film had. Ginny has so much spunk, so much vitality, that it's a tragedy how she was written onscreen. I think some of my favorite lines were ones from her.
One thing that was annoying was how little golden trio moments there were. It's exhausting reading so many pages of Hermione and Ron not getting along again. When they aren't working together, it's like the soul is sucked from the books. And with the fact that Hermione and Ron spend nearly the entire book ignoring each other, I quickly felt like something was missing.
Another thing I found weird was the "creature" that Harry kept describing when he thought of Ginny romantically. It was so cringey and weird. I felt like it was completely unnecessary to have in the book; there are other, more normal ways to show a character fancies another without saying that the creature inside of them wants to hurt anyone they kiss. I thought it was especially strange and sudden because this creature did not make an appearance when Harry spent the last two books pining over Cho (who still deserves better).
I liked the slow reveal of Voldemort's past and how much we learned about him in this book. The fact that people romanticize him because the actor who played his younger self in CoS was hot is still gross to me. This book, if it wasn't already clear enough from Harry's entire backstory, proves how much he sucks and how evil he is. The dude is a hypocrite; he's not even a pureblood and yet he thinks that pure-bloods should reign supreme? How did none of the people who knew him as Tom Riddle from Hogwarts not get confused? The pureblood line is apparently so small that most families would know each other and you would think that people would know that Riddle wasn't a pureblood surname? I have so many questions.
The "There's no need to call me sir, professor," line is the MOST iconic thing J.K. has ever written and you cannot convince me otherwise. It's absolutely incredible. Harry went into the hands of God himself. Snape was mentally crying on the floor, knowing he will never recover from being roasted so hard by a sixteen-year-old in front of the whole class. How everyone didn't immediately burst into laughter is beyond me.
Also: this book is proof that I will never forgive J.K. Rowling for saying that Snape was a good guy and decided to redeem him, but also turned around and said she doesn't understand why people like Draco because he was a horrible person. Draco had so much potential to be an amazingly well-rounded character. His arc could have been all about un-learning the horrible things your parents have taught you and becoming a better person to make up for your past actions. Did she forget that she wrote about Draco clearly not wanting to kill Dumbledore? Did she forget that Dumbledore himself said that if Draco had wanted to kill him, he would have done it immediately instead of talking so much? Did she forget that he said Voldemort would kill him and his family if he didn't do it? Did she forget that he started to lower his wand after Dumbledore offered to get him and his mother to safety? Then again, I don't really know what to expect from a transphobe like her.
The "Snape Sucks" count is somewhere in the 50s or 60s. I started losing track of the actual numbers and he wasn't very present in this book except at the beginning & end.
I'm both excited and scared for TDH!