I Finally Finished Harry Potter VI

What am I going to do with my evenings now?

I'll just start another book, of course, but until then, I'll tell you what I think of the Half-Blood Prince. It was . . . good. But not my favorite. The Goblet of Fire will always be my favorite installment of the Harry Potter series, I think, but the 6th one comes close. It definitely wasn't perfect, but I will say that the parts that were good were really good. Take, for instance, the insightful trips Harry took with Dumbledore into the pensieve. The backstory on Voldemort was great! Take, for another instance, Harry's trip with Dumbledore to the cave; that scene evoked a similar kind of wonder we find in The Hobbit. (And okay, okay. Maybe Rowling ripped off Tolkein, as someone pointed out to me today, but at least she did it well. And so what if she did? It makes her book better; plus, Dumbledore represents the old wizarding genius, so what better scene to put him in?)

Or take, for yet another instance, the return of the witty and precise story-telling that Rowling so aptly displayed the first four books. She lost that somewhere in the 5th book, but I believe she got it back. Thank goodness!

One problem with the story, though, is that she left a couple of holes in her explanation of Horcruxes. She tends to explain things in more detail with each book, so hopefully, she will set things right in the final book. If not, I will be VERY frustrated. The other two problems involve the ending of the story, so I can't really say what they are -- just in case you actually like Harry Potter but haven't "got round" to reading the Half-Blood Prince. I will say, though, that I thought the final scene was very . . . typical. Rowling gave Harry the typical melodramatic adventure-hero emotions -- the ones he feels when he knows he has a great task ahead of him; the kind we see from Peter Parker at the end of "Spiderman." Puh-lease. Like Harry didn't know he had this huge responsibility 4 books ago?

But whatever. It was still an enjoyable read, and I liked it. If you happen to have read it, please tell me what you thought of it . . .