I’ll probably change my mind tomorrow (after I’ve had some sleep and… perhaps… when my chest is hurting less), but here is my initial response to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in all of its non-spoiler glory: what? Readers will know what I mean when I say “when Harry and co. headed in for the climactic part…” Well, from that point onward, I thought the book rather fell apart. After a long, very interesting buildup, the story suddenly became uninteresting, chaotic, formulaic, and tedious — using all those words in their mildest sense, of course, as even uninteresting, chaotic, formulaic, and tedious J.K. Rowling is interesting, coherent, original, and gripping. However, the much-speculated-upon death left me completely unmoved, the similarly highly-discussed mysterious revelation unsurprised. Don’t think I’m trying to pan it… overall I enjoyed the book very much, am still quite enchanted with the series, and am looking forward to the next one most avidly. However, certain aspects left me disappointed; I can’t go into more detail without giving massive spoilers, of course… and as I just read the entire thing at one sitting and it’s now 6:30 AM (shimatta, I haven’t eaten in, like, two days, either), I don’t really feel like typing it out. *stumbles off to bed*
