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

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the sixth novel in JK Rowling’s international bestselling series about a boy wizard. The movie is due out later this year (2008). While I found this to be a page-turning read, I was disappointed that it only continued the ongoing story without having much of a plot of its own.

I have seen all five of the previous Harry Potter movies, but had never read one of the books until this one. I wanted to be able to say I read the book before seeing the movie, just so I could see how different the two would be. I think the movie will be good and disappointing at the same time. It’ll be like watching a mid-season episode of Lost where there will be some developments, but the main storyline will only inch forward.

This book has some decent character development and a couple of major events toward the end, but it doesn’t have much a central story, other than a lot of focus on Voldemort’s background. There is no real beginning and end, unless you consider that the book chronicles the sixth year of studies for the kids at Hogwarts. Things continue where the last story left, and this book serves as middle ground setting up things to be concluded in the final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

The title of the book comes from a textbook that Harry borrows for a class on Potions. This old book contains a bunch of hand-written liner notes with information not printed in the book, and Harry uses the mysterious writer’s advice to perform various magic feats that nobody else knew about. The only thing Harry knows about the previous owner of the book is that it has ‘Property of the Half-Blood Prince’ written inside the cover.

The main running storyline involves Harry and Dumbledore discovering the roots of Voldemort, and they do this by magically replaying memories from the past. It delves quite deeply into the childhood of Voldemort, as well as his days at Hogwarts. I liked how basically it describes Voldemort’s expeditious descent into ‘the dark side’ and they also learn of ways to finally beat him. While interesting, all of this amounts to mainly just information needed for the last book, so it’s fairly inconclusive.

I won’t spoil anything for you, other than to say this book has some big surprises in store for Harry and his friends. It also hints at a possible relationship between Ron and Hermoine, who gets jealous whenever Ron is with any other girls. Just be careful not to read anything about the next book, Deathly Hallows, because it will ruin the end of this book.

After having read this large book very quickly, I now understand why this series is so insanely popular all over the world. Simply put, Rowling is an excellent writer. She combines just the right amount of action and dialogue, and it never once gets worn down with boring details. Something happens every few pages, and the story has so many layers that it is easy to be drawn into this world of magic and mayhem.