Half-Blood Prince

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6)

***SPOILER ALERT***(if you’re one of the few still haven’t read it, you might not want to continue)

I’ve been anticipating reading book six of the Harry Potter series for quite some time. I was not dissapointed. Half-Blood Prince was just as good as any other Harry Potter book, and better than a couple. HBP gets quite a bit darker than even Order of the Pheonix, but considering “he-who-cannot-be-named” is back, I suppose it was expected.

Harry, Ron, Hermione and the crew all return for year six at Hogwarts. Of course chaos, mystery and dark wizardry ensue. Harry Potter finds himself in possesion of potions book that is inscribed with the name “Half-Blood Prince” and has multiple shortcuts and new spells that quickly send Harry to the front of the potions class. Snape finally becomes Dark Arts teacher much to the chagrin of the D.A. members. Once again, Draco Malfoy is up to no good, but this time with a more sinister twist. He’s under orders from the Dark Lord himself. Harry becomes obsessed with finding out exactly what those orders are. Dumbledore begins giving Harry private lessons and begins preparing him for his eventual final battle with Voldemort. But alas, not all is cheery roses and such. Someone must die, and unfortunately, it was Dumbledore himself. (considering his last appearance in Goblet of Fire, this may not be all bad.) The adventure ends with everyone heading home for the summer and Harry vowing to not return to Hogwarts, but to begin the journey that will lead to his ultimate battle with Voldemort.

There is plenty of the usual from the regulars and plenty of hidden secrets throughout. I won’t tell you that the Half-Blood Prince turns out to be Snape.(oops:)) And of course as we all suspected from the beginning, Snape isn’t all that “good”.

Overall, quite a good read. Well worth the week and a half it took me. I seem to fly through the Harry Potter books. I give it a 4 1/2 out of 5.

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