Book 21: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling

I'm getting started late on this one due to a mixup with the library.  I found that the library had a compilation of The Walking Dead comics and had a very clever scheme allowing me to keep the book over the holidays but it didn't turn out as intended.  When I checked out the book and flipped it open I found that it was actually volume 3 of the set and the library didn't have volumes 1 and 2.  Bummer.  Oh well, I said, back to the book I was originally intending to read, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.  I have a couple of Potter-philes at work that say that this is their favorite of the series.  Mine, so far, is still The Prisoner of Azkaban but we'll see.

This volume has 870 pages which would be about 125 pages a day, but since I'm getting a late start I'll have to do better than that.

REVIEW:  With this book, the transformation from Children’s Literature to something more mature is in full swing.  Harry is now 15 years old and Ms. Rowling does a great job of writing a teenage boy.  Unfortunately, this also makes Harry a bit of a jerk.  He’s short-tempered with his friends, he’s frustrated with authority figures and he always thinks that he knows more than those around him.  A teenage boy to a tee.

With a darker theme pervading the book there is little room any more for some of the fun stuff.  It’s a good 200 pages before Harry gets to Hogwarts.  Then with everything that’s going on in his life, tests, girls, Voldemort and the new, authoritarian teacher, Prof. Umbridge, even the previous fun parts like classes and friends become more serious and less whimsical.

It’s not entirely a bad thing, however.  I’m very impressed with Ms. Rowling’s ability to alter her world as Harry (and his readers) get older.  The first book was written for a younger audience and it shows, especially, with names like Dumbledore, Hogwarts and Hufflepuff.  As the audience gets older and the theme gets darker, some of the more innocent things about Harry’s world get darker as well.  A good example of this is the self-drawn carriages from previous books.  It was assumed that they were self-driven somehow, but now, Harry can see what is pulling them: skeletal horses with leathery wings.  It turns out that you cannot see these horses, called Thestrals, unless you have witnessed death.  Pretty dark, huh?

It was still a good read and the world and events are still interesting, but the more mature, darker mood of the books has taken some of the whimsy and fun out of the story.  Also, Harry is a bit less likable than he is in previous books.  7 out of 10.