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12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
Half baked, 13 Aug 2005
Disappointing. I think it was rushed and JK Rowling's heart obviously wasn't in it. We seemed to "jump" throught the terms extremely quickly (Christmas came round as a bit of a shock) and some of the characters who featured prominently in previous books were dropped from this one.
I couldn't have cared less about Harry, Ron and Hermione in this book - I found them all really irritating. Also I agree with anyone who wrote that this book was about 400 pages too long. We didnt need that many pages of Ron and Hermione falling out with each other because they can't get it on.
I felt that Harry has become a bit of a pretentious twit thinking he is entitled to demand Dumbledore's attention all the time and getting moody when people don't flock round him when he feels he has something to say. I think the character who dies deserved a bit more of a send off considering his role to date. Could have done with better editing as sometimes the chapters didn't quite fit together.
I hope that the next book doesnt have Ron Harry and Hermione dashing around finding horcruxes a la a Dan Brown novel....
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10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
Potter fanatic disappointed, 30 Jul 2005
By A Customer
I am a HUGE fan of JK Rowling, and I will always be, as she has brought such joy to my life through the Harry Potter books. But, after the first two chapters of HBP, as soon as Harry entered the story, I felt deep dissatisfaction as I read this book which I have been waiting for with great anticipation for two years. The writing just seemed so much more shallow. The conversations and emotions didn't come off as real. The characters had really been developed in the last five books, and it seemed like she just dropped the ball in this one. Harry got over Sirius' death almost immediately, although it was mentioned a couple of times that he got uncomfortable at the mention of Sirius, but that was it. Hermione seemed to be developing into a more and more mature, wise, understanding person in the former five books. In this book there was very little of that; she was pretty flat. She didn't even mention S.P.E.W., which was something she had been considering as a career. Even if she had changed her mind, wouldn't that have been mentioned? Ron was very shallow and pathetic. I know that is normal for age 16, but it just seemed overdone. None of them had any real depth. I was so used to the character development and the deep feeling in the other books. So many sub-plots that I was interested in seemed to be just dropped or handled clumsily. And the ending was WAY too abrupt. She usually does a very good job of winding down with the packing and the trip on the Hogwarts express. The funeral lacked much feeling. And the romance with Ginny had no depth, then was just over! She laughed when he broke up with her, then he just walked away and left her sitting alone!!! There was too much focus on new characters, and not enough development of those we know and love. Not enough of classroom situations. I have just loved the setting and the fact that the stories took place at a school, in a learning environment. I love Hogwarts. I actually feel betrayed that they are not going back to Hogwarts the next year. I felt as if we were promised Harry's seven years at Hogwarts. That was certainly implied, that the books would correspond to his school years. Losing the setting will be a real blow. I won't look forward to the 7th book nearly as much as I did the rest. I look forward to the end of the mystery, but not the loss of character depth and loss of setting. I will always be a fanatic about Hogwarts and the characters, but I think my love will remain mainly for the first five books which I know and love. I read the HBP a second time, and enjoyed it just for the plot, as I had no expectations this time. But it wasn't the same as reading the first five books.
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10 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
Disappointing, 11 Aug 2005
I have noticed a disturbing downward spiral of quality in the Harry Potter series. This books gaping inadequacies really personify everything that is going wrong with the series. The sheer lack of content is unreal, the entire contents of the book could have been written in at least half the amount of words and still waffle on for pages. If you minus the squabbles between the three friends you almost take away half the book, it really is that bad. Increasingly J.K Rowling appears to save a somewhat weak, repetitive and increasingly uncreative book with a whirlwind ending that will leave you wanting to read the next book whilst you slate the book you just read. I cannot believe there is not a huge outcry from Potter fans after the release of this book.
The petty arguments that plague this book between the characters is very irritating and adds nothing to the book. When reading do not expect to here of any new characters or for that matter any new plot apart from the shock ending.
To sum the book up I can say no better than. A simple, airy novel, full of waffle, but again a necessary purchase for any potter fan because you just have to read it. (Even if to be honest it is not a very good book.)
Maybe I am just growing out of it (17 years old)??
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6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
What happened to the story?, 2 Aug 2005
This is nothing compared to the gripping suspense and storylines of Harry potter and the Philosophers stone, and Prisoner of Azkaban,,,these were fun to read,,and by my standards, the best of the series. HP and Goblet of fire was fun, Order of Phoenix was so-so, but Half blood prince was downright boring,,only interesting towards the end,,,was really annoyed by the constant "snogging" i dunno, i think this gives a wrong impression and puts pressure on todays kids, that this "snogging" etc is the norm in schools, and everyone does it,,,i dunno..thats my view
i hope to see a better book in the final of the series,,,I think we fans deserve it
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7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
Harry Potter goes downhill, 22 Jul 2005
I found the latest of JK Rowling's offerings to the Harry Potter series a dismal disappointment.
The factual content of the story is good but it has not been written to achieve it's full potential. I found many places in the book where what could have been a gripping moment (like the Death Eater fight) was spun out for too long therefore losing all of the awe-factor it could have had.
Overall I was not surprised by this decline in quality of writing as the series seems to have been struggling since the 4th book - which was when (as readers will know) the books became increasingly larger in size due to Rowlings loss of her ability to write complexly structured sentences to grip even the youngest and oldest of audiences.
Overall - Let's just hope the final volume makes up for this.
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7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
Better than HP5 but..., 20 Jul 2005
The Half-Blood Prince is a clear improvement over the dire HP5, but of course that's not saying much. Rowling has thankfully returned to her clearer, lighter style and given up trying to make Harry into an adolescent - there's girls and kissing but no anguished, angry outbursts of angst. The story rattles along reasonably quickly and there are few dull or pointless passages.That's the good news. The bad news is that, like HP5, this seems like a holding book, 600 pages of back story to prepare us for the finale in Book Seven. Much of those 600 pages is taken up with Voldemort's history and whilst that is interesting enough, it doesn't really make for a gripping tale in itself. Other than that, there isn't much to it. Snape is established as having a major role to play in the coming battle, and one of the main characters dies (probably). And that is about it. Harry remains a cipher, somebody to whom things happen and as such is rather dull. He has a few scrapes but is never really threatened. He sails through the book serenely, seemingly indifferent to what is happening all around him. He never really gets going, happy to let things take their course. Herminone and Ron have slipped into the distance, and Ron in particular plays a very minor role. Ginny has much more prominence, perhaps because Rowling feels the need for a spunky, cool heroine and Herminone was never that. The various romances are not too embaressing but they have no depth or resonance. We do see a lot more of Dumbledore, and frankly he is a bit of a Dumble-bore. By far the most interesting characters are the baddies: Snape, Voldemort, his family, Malfoy's mother. They are multi-dimensional and not just evil. For some reason Rowling killed off Sirius Black last time, but he was by far the most intersting of the goodies - complicated, flawed and brooding - and he is missed. As for the Half-blood Prince...well, suffice to say it's a bit of a let-down frankly. Most disappointingly, there are no new magical creatures, and the little new magic there is passed over quickly, as if Rowling has got bored with it. There is little humour either and only a short scene with the Dursleys. One of the problems is that the universe doesn't really hold up if you try and make it too intricate. Rowling is over-plotting and bringing back Voldemort in HP4 now seems like a mistake. This book half repudiates the important event in HP5 and reinterprets part of HP2. What's the story? Well, Harry goes back to school, discovers there is a plot led by Malfoy but doesn't find out what it is until too late - in a rather confusing and lazy ending where the Death Eaters plan seems rather to easy. Along the way, Harry discovers about Voldemort's early life and how he is immortal. He also rather luckily finds an old textbook used by the Half-blood Prince that helps him out now and again. And that's it. In conclusion, if you want to find out what happens in the end, you have to read this, but as a stand-alone book - don't bother.
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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
Deja-vu?, 20 Jul 2005
By A Customer
I realise that what I'm about to say is probably going to anger a lot of Potter fans but I feel this needs to eb said: This new book is thoroughly disappointing. Not only has Rowling's style become formulaic to the point that I feel I'm getting deja-vu reading this book, she shows a remarkable lack of creativity for an author who showed such promise with the first few installments in the series. The new Harry Potter is dry, monotonous and fails to satisfy. Children's book though it may be, Rowling should at least make more of an attempt to satisfy the substantial fan base she has amongst older age groups. I feel she handles the last few chapters of the book particularly badly: I wont go into too much detail to spoil it for those who haven't read the book yet, but what for me should be an emotionally charged ending turned out to be a rather bland event. Come on JK, we know you can do better!
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7 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
disappointing, 18 Jul 2005
Harry Poter and the Half-blood Prince follows a familliar format now well-known to fans. Harry spends a year at Hogwarts attending lessons, playing quidditch and grappling more and more confidently with teenage romance until the finale, where a series of magical puzzles is followed by a wizard battle.
While this is certainly more of the same, its still fun right? Well, not really: most of the joy of this series has been drawn from discovering, with Harry Potter, normal aspects of JK Rowling's fantastically inventive wizard world. However, after six years at Hogwarts, Harry Potter is as well acquainted with it as the reader- and indeed it is barely enlarged upon. It was the gloriously evil Umbridge who injected the colour and texture that this series relies upon into book 5. Unfortunatly, the villain who figures largest in Book 6 is Voldemort, who is not nearly so engaging. J K Rowling was right to see the need to flesh out Voldemort, who is as well rounded as a B-movie monster and even resembles one but the attempt is largely unsuccessful: Voldemort was apparently born evil and little has changed but his skin tone (pale to pallid).
With Harry moving into the adult world soon, however, things might get more interesting. There will be new things to discover- is there a Wizard equivalent to UCAS? How do you sign on in the magical world? With no teachers to enforce the staus quo, only the Ministry whose rules the characters can have great fun breaking, the plot should trip along at a much faster pace. Heres hoping.
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4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Sadly does not live up to the hype!, 21 Jul 2005
By A Customer
Having read through all the other Harry Potter books I was eager to read the new one. Now having finished it I find myself rather disappointed. Considering the thickness of the book, the story lacked in depth. The first half of the book went very slowly thus leading me to think its contents could have been more reasonably condensed.
For me the books contents did not live up to the hype surrounding its title. The contents failed to grip the usual excitment and humour its predecessors aroused and I would not be in a hurry to read this book again.
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4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
pretty disappointing, 21 Jul 2005
whilst loose ends were tied, I am overly disappointed with the new harry potter tale and feel that the book was left hanging as opposed to finished, each of the other books whilst strongly relating to the previous novels was a book indivdually aswell where as this just ended like a chapter. I feel the question of Snape is totally ruined now it was better not knowing in that respect. I am not going to tell the tale as that will ruin it for those of you who haven't read it yet.I hope we don't have to wait to long for the next book as this one didn't really have an ending and I hope it is better than this one.
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