Book #27: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling

Okay, I have never been someone who has thought too deeply about these books when I've read them. Like I said with the last book, I LOVE Harry Potter and I always have. But now I am laughing because out of curiosity, I just looked at the Goodreads reviews for this book and OH MY GOODNESS there are some crazy insane people who spend SO MUCH TIME reading and thinking about everything in these books! I honestly have never thought much outside of the normal realm of readership, but I'm glad I read those reviews because it gave me some ideas for what to say in my own review here.

A lot of reviews for this book rated this as the worst book in the Harry Potter series, because it was basically just following the mystery formula Rowling set up in the first book, but didn't do it as successfully. Many people didn't like a lot of the pivotal scenes in that book, either--the flying car, Aragog/the spiders, the Polyjuice Potion. And I really get all that. I wouldn't say this book was my favorite, when I look at it objectively. Even when I was younger, I never bought why Ron and Harry would take the car and fly it to Hogwarts. The obvious solution is to just wait for Mr. and Mrs. Weasley to come back out from the platform and have them help them! I honestly think that's a theme of Harry and his friends' characters--they do not think or act like normal twelve-year-olds do. Normal twelve-year-olds still rely heavily on adults to help them when they are in trouble. And sure, Harry has never had adults really to help him, but it still does not make sense why they would end up being the ones to go to the Chamber of Secrets without talking to Professor McGonagall or Dumbledore. You have to buy their mentality (suspension of disbelief), however, in order for the story to work, because if Rowling wrote them like real twelve-year-olds, the adults would be doing all the work and there would be no story.

So, sure, this story may be not as deep or fun or important to the rest of the series, but I love a lot of the moments in this book. The best part is Fawkes showing up and saving Harry in the Chamber of Secrets. I love how Hermione figures out the mystery and they find it out by the page she had held in her hand. I love Harry being rescued by Ron, Fred, and George from the Dursleys' house! I think it's important to be introduced to Dobby (although he is not endearing at all in this book, only annoying; he becomes much more endearing later). So I definitely like this book still, although it's more of a stepping stool to the rest of the series, which begin to be more interconnected after this book.