Alas, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is not any more enjoyable on a re-read than it was the first time around. And I have to disagree with my prior self: the pre-Hogwarts section is objectively long but doesn’t feel nearly as slow as the Hogwarts section proper, probably because it’s more varied and eventful. (There is also less CAPSLOCK HARRY than I remembered, but what there is, is still too much.)
I’m not sure that I fully realized that this book runs on an idiot plot on a different level than the prior one, but it made me want to shake all the characters silly—even sillier—until they agreed to talk to each other, already! I can’t nitpick any closer than that, because I was skimming as I’d given myself permission to.
Well, it’s done, and now I’ve only one left before my memory-refreshing project is complete.
This is the one HP book I will probably never read again. The plot of GoF may have been flawed, but at least it had some excitement. (Actually, GoF is my favourite book so far, and the only movie I wasn’t terminally bored by, but I do recognize at least some of its flaws. I think JKR just isn’t all that great at plotting very long books.)
Poodlerat: yeah. It’s not that I don’t see that the book was attempting interesting and difficult things, I just don’t think its execution was anything to write home about.
I suspect the sixth, which looked really good in comparison to this, will look less-good objectively. We’ll see . . .
I did enjoy HBP more than OotP, but I still haven’t re-read it at all, which is very, very unusual for me. So I suspect you’re right, at least in my case.
I enjoyed OotP MUCH more this week than I did on either previous read. I think it was because I could forget about the “I’m going to tell you what I should have told you ten years ago” stuff, and concentrate on the story of messy adolescence. The bits where he realises he’s in love with Ginny, “the beast in his chest” – those bits are just like being 15 was.
Sue: glad to hear it, except the in-love-with-Ginny was in book six?
(Personally I hated them, and I was okay with Harry/Cho, but it’s good to hear that they resonate with someone.)
except the in-love-with-Ginny was in book six
Oops – that’ll teach me to read both books in a single day!