With this post, I'm finally caught up through what I'd already known from the movies--and whoof, it was a long slog through Order of the Phoenix, 800+ pages in the hardback edition. Overall I quite enjoyed this read, and it was a lot of fun to get details that were skimmed over or in some cases left out entirely in the movie filled out a lot more here.
The biggest fault I found with it was the Harry Rage. Wow. From a whole page of all-caps screaming at Ron and Hermione to his wanting to tear the hell out of Dumbledore's office, it got awfully wearisome after a while. I can't say it was entirely unjustified--after all, Harry has gotten a lot of crap slung at him throughout the course of this series--but the boy spends way more time in this book sulking than he does anything else. As a result, he was frequently actively annoying, and I was quite glad that Hermione and Ron regularly told him to stop being a prat.
On the other hand, there's a lot in this story to like as well. Tonks and Luna were quite a bit more fleshed out and therefore more interesting. Dolores Umbridge, while not quite as teeth-gratingly repulsive here as I found her in the movie (just because the actress who played her on screen did such a beautiful job), was still a highly effective antagonist for the school--and plus, we got a lot more detail here about how the teachers were giving her constant shit while adhering to the letter of the laws she was laying down. Harry's Aunt Petunia gets a surprising little bit of character development, which makes her suddenly almost sympathetic. The sub-plot with Percy Weasley caught me completely by surprise and was therefore quite gripping. And, while the scenes between Harry and Snape weren't a surprise, they were nevertheless good strong reading. I'm still not jumping on the Snapefen Bandwagon, but I definitely found his character development some of the strongest stuff in the book.
All in all I think I'll give this one three and a half stars.
The biggest fault I found with it was the Harry Rage. Wow. From a whole page of all-caps screaming at Ron and Hermione to his wanting to tear the hell out of Dumbledore's office, it got awfully wearisome after a while. I can't say it was entirely unjustified--after all, Harry has gotten a lot of crap slung at him throughout the course of this series--but the boy spends way more time in this book sulking than he does anything else. As a result, he was frequently actively annoying, and I was quite glad that Hermione and Ron regularly told him to stop being a prat.
On the other hand, there's a lot in this story to like as well. Tonks and Luna were quite a bit more fleshed out and therefore more interesting. Dolores Umbridge, while not quite as teeth-gratingly repulsive here as I found her in the movie (just because the actress who played her on screen did such a beautiful job), was still a highly effective antagonist for the school--and plus, we got a lot more detail here about how the teachers were giving her constant shit while adhering to the letter of the laws she was laying down. Harry's Aunt Petunia gets a surprising little bit of character development, which makes her suddenly almost sympathetic. The sub-plot with Percy Weasley caught me completely by surprise and was therefore quite gripping. And, while the scenes between Harry and Snape weren't a surprise, they were nevertheless good strong reading. I'm still not jumping on the Snapefen Bandwagon, but I definitely found his character development some of the strongest stuff in the book.
All in all I think I'll give this one three and a half stars.
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