- Christina (Kurisuchiina)
Before getting Half-Blood Prince, I had not been subjected to any spoilers. All I knew was that somebody was going to die, as it's somewhat common in the Harry Potter books, and that the Half-Blood Prince was not Harry or Voldemort. By the first couple of chapters, my jaw was dropping. It was quite dark, and for me it was shocking. My jaw dropped lots of times during this part, and there were plenty exclamations of "NO WAY!" and "OMG!" coming from my bedroom, which in turn got my mother running in being all like "What happened?!". As I previously said, it was quite dark, the death rate for this one is much higher than with the other books. However these deaths are only lightly mentioned, and it adds to the dark and foreboding mood of the book, but it's well used. Witches and wizards seem terrified that something bad will happen to them, some even disappearing without any reason or mention.
For those wondering, yes, there is a bit more romance in Half-Blood Prince. I saw the word 'snogging' come up often. I'm not going to specify which ships, you can the book and find out. I liked how Half-Blood Prince has some ties with Chamber Of Secrets, specifically speaking, Tom Riddle's diary. It's interesting how JK Rowling figured out how to tie it in, and well, it's exactly what someone would to in extreme lengths to achieve immortality. When I got about half-way, there is lead as to who exactly the Half-Blood Prince. At this stage, I personally felt a little let down as the person who they assume may be the Half-Blood Prince, is someone who isn't even a character. This feeling soon disappeared when I began to reach the ending.
I quite liked Half-Blood Prince, in my opinion is somewhat kind of a prequel as well for a particular character. We discover the history about this certain character, and I personally found it very interesting. I won't reveal who this character is, you're just going to have to read the book!
In Order Of The Phoenix, Harry was incredibly angsty and just generally snappy, it was like he had a male form of PMS constantly. I understand that his 5th year may not have been the best, but at times it made me want to put my book down, not read it, and strangle him. It was a bit over the top personally. Fortunately, Harry seems to have calmed down in Half-Blood Prince, and he isn't so snappy and angsty. It's like JK Rowling decided to give him tranquilizers and sedatives or something.
But that was good, never once during Half-Blood Prince did I want to put the book down. I found that Order Of The Phoenix was a little long-winded, not a book I'd want to read in one sitting if I felt like it and had the time. Half-Blood Prince, although shorter than Order Of The Phoenix, in my opinion, was much better. There are probably some who would disagree with me, but each has their own opinion. Order Of The Phoenix did make me cry, but not as much as Half-Blood Prince did. I've never cried about a book or anything happening in a book prior to Order Of The Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince. I'm not going into too much depth as to why I was crying, but as we all know, a character dies. It's who dies and who kills them that is completely shocking!
I'd write more, but I'm afraid if I continue writing I'll end up writing spoilers! Half-Blood Prince was a great book, it's by far my favourite in the series so far. It was definitely worth the wait. Now I can't wait until the 7th book comes out!
Source : Snitch-Seeker