Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Book Review

This book is amazing. Yes, it's the size of a baby elephant, but still. It doesn't feel long. Despite my urges to strangle some characters and my weeping over the misery of others, I loved it. Every single page of it.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling

I think in this book J.K. Rowling really adds extra layers to the story. Every aspect of it is given more detail and I can't really find anything that's wrong with the Order of the Phoenix. It surprised me multiple times and left me in shock, and in the end, tears.



Rating:
5 stars, obviously.

Spoiler section:

Before we go into THE SPECIFIC THING THAT HAPPENED, I'll go over some other stuff in this book that I liked or disliked. Stick around.

Plot building

This is plot like plot is supposed to feel like. We learn a lot more about the history and Voldemort's rise to power. We now know more about weapons, allies, and enemies, but also about new forms of magic like Occlumency. I enjoyed the time we spent with the Order and the resolution was, as by now I no less than expect, amazing and very powerful. The connection between Voldemort and Harry, is still not completely clear. And some objects in the Department of Mysteries are still, well, mysteries. In other words: I want to know what that veil does. I do love new information and Dumbledore's Army is totally awesome (and, now, a little bitter-sweet).

Creatures

By now it's probably clear that I love my fictional animals, and J.K. Rowling's series has the best of those.

The Thestrals are fascinating and I hope we see them back in other books. (Spoiler alert: I've started Deathly Hallows and they're not back yet.) I'm really looking forward to seeing them in the movie. They're probably my favorite creatures in this series thus far.

Grawp the giant. I can't believe Hagrid has actually 'succeeded' at teaching him how to speak English. That's like teaching a tomato how to become an apple to me. But when he says Hermione's name, it's really cute.

Characters

I can't remember a character I wanted to die more. Forget Snow, forget Coin, forget Jeanine, forget David, forget Voldemort, forget Queen Levana, forget Commander Jameson. forget the Darkling. She is the worst. Reasons:

-She made Harry cut into his own hand.

-I picture her voice like the high squeaky voice of Effie Trinket, which is an insulted to Effie.

-She's a sociopath.

-She tried to do away with Dumbledore.

-She always wears pink.

-She reminds me of a mixture of Queen Elizabeth and a walking candy cane.

Yet another journey into the Pensieve, an object I love, because it's like a magical portal to the character development universe. This time, though, I was mainly just really sad when Harry jumped out. Yes, Lilly was a good person, but his dad was a little bit of an @ss. I really hope we get to learn more about Lilly, James, Snape, and Sirius later on in the series.

Luna. I was really looking forward to seeing her. (Spoiled, I know.) I think she's cute and a really fun character and I hope she sticks around.

The members of the order (Tonks, Mad-Eye, Lupin, etc.) I like as well. You would think these kind of characters might turn out a little cardboard-y, but this is J.K. Rowling, people, no cardboard here.

There's some Sirius character development for the existing characters as well. You notice as you read this series that while Rowling's audience grows older, she makes the characters more complex. There's less plain evil or annoyance and more motives.
A simple example: Dumbledore's power is shown more than in the previous novels. Sure, he was always bad ass, but only now I feel like we realize just how powerful that old man is. He just casually knocks Ministers and Aurors off their feet.

Bellatrix I look forward to killing almost as much as to Umbridge's bitter end. Which brings us to the very terrible thing that has happened.

Story and situations

This book really takes the story to another level. Aside from romance, complex magic, and career choices, we start to deal with death and more responsibility. As I'm now used to, there's a start, a middle in which all kinds of things happen, a build-up, and then a final battle.

The final battle was very, well, final.

Here's a brief break-down of the last few chapters and my reactions to them.

Let's start with Harry's vision of Voldemort torturing Sirius. That scared me, because I knew Sirius was going to die and feared he might be tortured to death.

So in Umbridge's office, nothing that special happens. Umbridge continues to be a b!tch; Ginny, Luna, and Neville proved to be my new non-HarryRonHermione favorite students; and Hermione continues to be a genius.

Flying on the Thestrals I found really cool. Also, Umbridge getting thrown into the sky by Centaurs and Grawp was a pleasure to read.

The battle in the Department of Mysteries kept me awake like nothing else. Also, it broke my heart.

Yes, that happened. At the moment itself I didn't even cry, I was too stunned.

Then we faced Voldemort, again, in the Atrium. I loved how Voldemort couldn't take being inside Harry's head for more than a few seconds. That part also really convinced me of Dumbledore's power over Voldemort.

Harry's conversations with Nearly Headless Nick and Luna: This is where I cried like a baby. From his looking into the mirror to his desperate hopes that Sirius might be a ghost, I was sobbing like crazy.

Then there was Harry's anger with Dumbledore, which almost set me off again. I really appreciated the information about the whole prophesy, though, and the bigger role for Neville I did not see coming.

So overall, heart-break, love, happiness, cruelty, and the continuation of the ultimate battle between good and evil.