hot off the presses

My review of HBP comes out on in the Features section of the Daily Advertiser on Sunday, but here's an advanced copy.


Harry Potter and my little sister are growing up.
I’m not sure which realization hit me harder last weekend, as I took my 10-year-old sister to the midnight release of “Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince.” She, well, hardly needs me anymore. She made friends with fellow costumed kids and wasted no time pulling a “Lemony Snicket” book off the shelf, plunging into it and finishing it before we went to
bed that night.And then there’s Harry, now 16, in the second-to-last installment in the global phenomenon by J.K. Rowling. His changes are a bit more magical, but like my sister, it’s becoming clear that he’s striking out on his own.
He’s traded his surliness and his ALL CAPS shouting from the last book, “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” for a hearty helping of leadership, with a dash of admirable cunning. And in Rowling fashion, it’s some of the smallest things that make us aware of this. Harry now uses magic without the slightest hesitation, from healing a fellow Quidditch
player’s bloody lip to hexing rival Draco Malfoy with dangerous consequences.

At the start of this book, the magical world is at war. Bridges are collapsing, witches are being murdered and the Minister of Magic has been ousted. The once lively Diagon Alley, a wizarding Main Street, is a shell of its former self, with windows boarded up and no one stopping to say hello. The veil of secrecy under which the evil Lord Voldemort operated in the fifth book has been unceremoniously lifted, leaving everyone scrambling to protect themselves.
The only person who seems certain of what to do next is Albus Dumbledore, Harry’s mentor and headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He returns to school with a mysterious injury, and begins private lessons with Harry. This is where Rowling’s gift for weaving together intricate storylines is on full display.
We learn Voldemort’s wicked history through the Pensieve, Rowling’s handy plot device for sharing the fascinating tale of how a handsome, ambitious boy became a calculating killer.
In Rowling’s rush to answer as many questions as possible, we find ourselves listening to long and occasionally redundant speeches from Dumbledore to fill in gaps of the story. It’s clear she’s laying the detailed groundwork for what’s to come in Book 7.
There’s been much ado about The Death at the end of this book, and rightfully so. It’s the most gut-wrenching and emotional one yet, and no doubt one that is meant to send Harry surging forward in his now much-clearer mission — to destroy Voldemort, literally, piece by piece.
We learn more, but maybe not quite enough, about the allegiance of a character everyone loves to hate, Professor Snape. Fans are already forming elaborate theories about Snape’s motivations throughout this book, and what role he will play in the series conclusion.
Amid this book’s climate of death and fear, Rowling flashes her superior wit in storylines we love to read. Hormones are raging among the main characters, and their romantic misadventures make for a nice distraction — for the characters and the readers — from the ominous magical world. After a hilarious but abysmal fling with Cho Chang in “Order,” Harry finds something a bit more substantive in “Prince.” Still, as Harry grows into the leader and powerful wizard he must become, he, like so many other
fantasy heroes, feels he must face his mission alone.
But as Dumbledore reminds us in this installment, it’s love that protected The Boy Who Lived and it’s love that will ultimately help him defeat You-Know-Who. Harry needs his dearest friends, Ron and Hermione, and I suspect we haven’t seen the last of Harry’s new love.
Keep a box of tissues handy as you near the end of this book. Rowling allows us, along with Harry, to truly mourn the death of a beloved character, to pay our last respects through her touching writing. We are starkly reminded that this is the beginning of the series’ finale. And like this departed character, good, even great things must come to an end.