Second to the last book. This one is by far the most intense, eye opening, and interesting book of them all. The rest of the world is now aware that Lord V has returned, and Harry has several times stopped his efforts to wreck havoc, but he is still not believed by the adults trying to run the show. Gone is the brooding, depressed Harry from the last book, now he is pissed, frustrated with bumbling wizards in positions of authority, and for the first time seriously taking control of his destiny. Dumbledore reveals to him what has been happening all along (it was not what anyone thought) and gives him direction and a plan for the final battle. The next book will be the last one, and it is going to have to be pretty impressive to tie up the mess everyone finds themselves in at the end of this one.

Currently my favorite Potter book. Harry takes a major moody turn (and frankly given his age and what has been happening to him, he deserves to), an organization has formed to help fight Lord V but most of the world does not believe he has returned. It is of course in the government’s best interest to deny this, because it is supposed to be their job to protect against. As a result they (through the media) are actively encouraging the belief that Harry is delusional, attention seeking, lying, or all three.

This, combined with the fact that it is no longer Harry and a couple of friends against evil, but a group of adults running the Order, puts Harry into a more passive role regarding his fate. He does not react well to all of this, and it almost leads to his downfall. Again, the story is intense, the plot is gripping, and the story arc is advancing at an alarming rate.

At this point the story really started in book 3 begins ramping up. Again we have a lot of back-story and information being pumped out, and for the first time we start seeing elements in the story happening from another person’s perspective. Who’s perspective? The villain who we truly have not seen acting as a villain yet. He makes a massive appearance and the endgame between Lord V and Harry begins.

This book also marks the point in the story arc where it takes a drastic “from PG to PC13 or R” turn. Make no mistake, people die, scary stuff happens, and a teenager is put into positions that most adults would collapse under. At this point it is no longer a story for grade school children, it is a story that is growing up with children who are Harry’s age.

For me, this is where the story really took off. The first two I was mildly interested in, both being good reads. However this is the first one I literally could not stop reading. I don’t mean that figuratively, I skipped a night of sleep to finish this book.

Characters (seemingly) fully developed, the story arc takes off full swing. Bits of back-story and plot information that were once rolled out piecemeal during the first two books, are now fired at you like a machine gun. Quite simply, after reading this book, I was addicted, and I knew I had to find out how all of this ended.

In the grand scheme of things, this book really just serves a similar purpose to the first book. The characters, having been introduced are now going to get developed further. The overall plot will begin to be slowly revealed (as it will over the next few books).

Unlike rest of the series, this one always seemed a bit out of place to me. I cannot quite explain why, perhaps it is a bit like Babylon 5 where over the course of 5 seasons there were certain episodes integral to the long term story arc, and many that were just thrown in to tell side stories. This book always seemed that way. (Note: I just realized there is probably a small number of people reading Harry Potter AND who are familiar with the entire Babylon 5 series story arc).

At least I used to think this. After reading “The Half Blood Prince” I am beginning to think this story was actually more important than it seemed at the the time and perhaps much more was revealed in it than seemed to be on the surface.

A good place to start. The Harry Potter story ends up being so complicated and interesting that I sometimes forget that it had rather humble beginnings. This is certainly a good children’s book, but not nearly as sophisticated as the story has become in later books. More than anything it really does capture the feelings of being out of place, unsure of oneself, and intimidated that all children (and most adults) go through at times.