O.O;

You've gotta be shitting me. Never has a piece of literature EVER depressed me as much as Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Jesus. Please don't read my rant if you haven't read the book, as I'd hate to spoil it for anyone. It's a pretty good read (took me roughly 5 hours. Impressive, on the book's side, as I capped Order of the Phoenix in like 3), but bring a box of Kleenex if you're prone to those pesky emotions people tend to get when they're enthralled with books.





















Okay. Shall I begin by listing what I HATED about this book? Or What I liked? I'll go with liked, because then the flow of my first update in what is probably nearly a year if not more will follow the flow of the book.
Alright. I enjoyed (with some reluctance) the constant hilarity of the romantic pairings in this book. THe fact that everyone gives Ron shit, so he rushes out and gets himself a girlfriend, who ALL he does is make out with 24/7, then takes the potion and falls in love with the girl who's after Harry, then eventually dumps his girlfriend for Hermione (though they never say it outright in the book, it's implied the whole way through and at the end she seeks him out for comfort, so it becomes obvious). Also, unexpectedly: Lupin and Tonks? That was... Interesting. I foresaw Fleur being more of a bitch too and leaving Bill after Fenrir's attack, but hey, maybe she does have some fairly good qualities. But now I come to the single worst one in the whole book, which pissed me off so bad I actually had to stop reading for a good 2 hours...
Harry and Ginny. When they first have their run-in and Ron tries to hex his sister, and Harry freaks out and wants to kill off her boyfriend, echoed in my soul. How sad is that? That was when I placed my bookmark in the page and snapped the book shut, then went upstairs to procure some dinner. When I returned, I reread the page to see if the fate of Mr. Potter was no longer a mirror of my own, and sadly it was. So I played .hack//INFECTION for a good hour and a half until my curiosity got to me and I had to finish reading. SO all in all, yeah. THe book is much more funny than you'd think.
I also enjoyed Fred and George. Their shop is painted vividly, and it was probably one of my favorite scenes of the book, other than the Horcrux scene, which I'll get to. The mere notion of this enormous shop, filled with nothing but devious magical tricks excites me in ways unfathomable by most.
On speking of the book's namesake. Let it be known I despise the Half-Blood Prince, but he's a genius. That made me happy when Harry got Hermione pissed at him for being bettter than her. The characters have become more human as the books progress, and not blatantly like in Order of the Phoenix. It's odd that I can both hate and love J.K. Rowling for her writing at the same time.


Now on to what I didn't like.
Dumbledore should not have died. Period. The bitch is killing off all the good characters. Only Moody, Lupin, and Harry (whom we will refer to as "New" Harry, as opposed to the Harry of all previous books, whom I loathed for being an imbecile)to further anything. And plus, how in the world is she going to detail Harry's finding four more Horcruxes, taking down Voldemort, etc. in one book? And why was Harry such a dumbass as to leave Ginny, whom he apparently loves so much as to be consumed by her, but allow Ron and Hermione to stay with him and help him? They're in just as much danger. That blows his excuse to "The woman he loves" out of the water. And if Voldemort KNOWS he feels that way, and he (who seems to be the only thing left between the Dark Lord and oh... THE WORLD at this point) is away from Hogwarts trying to kill Voldemort, what's to stop him from killing her just to rattle Harry? God. The boy does NOT think evilly enough. Yeah, leave the girl, but if Malfoy knows, so does Riddle, and therefor, she's a prime target. Along with all the Weasleys, all the Grangers, and anyone else Harry has ever confided in. Gah...
The whole downplaying of Quidditch killed me. I love Quidditch. I practically memorized "Quidditch Through the Ages" and the fact that only one match had any detail, and that Harry gets knocked unconcious at least once per book while flying, has made it annoying and cliche. GET A TACTIC FOR HURTING THE PROTAGONIST OTHER THAN A BLUDGER, YOU SOD.
Uh... Did anyone else find the constant use of the term "snogging" annoying? The descriptions were funny ("There was a noise like a plunger being removed from a toilet bowl and Ron surfaced" I believe was one of my favorites), but the fact taht we've gone from innocent children, to angry children, to sexually crazed teenagers in just 3 books bothers me. Puberty seems to move slowly in wizards, then speed up like a demon and come back to bite them in the ass. Harsh.


I'll have more later. For now, Brian's PS2 and .hack// call

Later,
Steve