Book #31: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling

After having finished the series now, I feel like this book is unique among the Harry Potter books. In retrospect, this book really does seem like it's just a lead-in to the climax of the seventh book. The sixth has a distinct lack of action going on throughout the storyline--all of the most important parts of this book are really surrounding Dumbledore's lessons with Harry, where you learn backstory on Voldemort. That's not to say that I don't like the book--I actually LOVE that we learn so much of Voldemort's story and that it helps us to fill in so many questions that have been raised throughout the rest of the series. I also like that for once, Harry is not the most hated person in Hogwarts for most of the book (it seems like that is the case for almost every other book). For once, Harry has a pretty good year--he gets really good at Potions (thanks to his used Potions book he gets), he gets the girlfriend he wants, he's not passing in and out of Voldemort's mind any more, and he gets to spend a lot of time with Dumbledore and learn a lot from him (and get closer to his goal of finishing off Voldemort). I mean, of course, the year ends on a pretty unfortunate note, which basically cancels out all of the good things that happen, but most of the book has Harry in a pretty good place.

A note about the romance in this book: I really, really like Hermione and Ron getting together in this book. I love that Ron starts dating Lavender Brown and they fight for a while, until Ron almost dies and they make up. I know that Rowling said in a recent interview that Ron and Hermione would probably not have made it and that it was a mistake to get them together (and honestly, I see that, because Hermione is too much better than Ron at everything and in every way for that to be an even match) but I still love it and I am totally happy about them being together. I don't feel quite so enthusiastic about Ginny and Harry, though--I feel like Rowling just decided when she started writing the fifth book that they would get together so she suddenly made Ginny have a personality in that book, and then they just fell together during this book. I totally get that Harry and Ginny getting together really completes the Harry-Weasley connection so it makes us all feel warm and fuzzies about Harry's future life, but I've never really gotten that into Ginny's character ever and felt that intrigued by her (and she is totally awful in the movies).