:: darcysbooks ::

:: Wednesday, June 18, 2003 ::

harry potter and the order of the phoenix
j.k. rowling

The long-awaited fifth book in the Harry Potter series, in which, among other things, Harry starts to experience the joys of adolescence--alienation, anger, and an inability to understand girls' brains. The kids at Hogwarts are growing up a little, and this is reflected in the writing style and the characters' language--though I would be interested to see if there are as many uses of "yeah", "what the hell", and other mild profanities in the English versions of the book.

I enjoyed this book, though for all it's popularity I still don't rank Harry Potter up there with the other greats of English Children's Literature. The story is fun, the character development interesting, and even though Harry often acts like a typical teenage brat his portrayal is sympathetic enough that you can't help feeling for him even as he's throwing his latest temper tantrum. The author and publishers, as we all know, did their bests to keep the details of the plot secret. What is interesting is that despite this, the aspects of the story that were made public (a character dies, Harry finally "learns everything") became anticlimactic and less effective within the story because I was watching for them. What can you do...
:: darcy 12:18 PM [+] ::
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