I enjoyed this installment of the Harry Potter saga more than I expected I would. Order of the Phoenix begins with Harry staying with the Dursleys and listening for any suspicious deaths on the news that would indicate Lord Voldemort is returning to his former power. Before Harry can hear anything about Voldemort, he is confronted with two dementors and must act quickly to save himself and his hated cousin, Dudley. Upon using his patronus to defeat the creatures, Harry finds he has been watched by people with ties to the magical world the whole time he has been on Privet Drive.
Harry struggles throughout the book with people believing that he and Dumbledore are creating and spreading lies about Voldemort's return. He also has to contend with the Ministry of Magic interfering with the way that Hogwarts is run by appointing Delores Umbrage as the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Umbrage was the most infuriating part of the movie for me and is by far the worst nutter in the book. Her annoying "hem hem"s that pepper the book remind me of interfering nuisances that I have known and her completely evil personality and idiocy make me crazy! Anyway, Umbrage can make it difficult to want to read some parts of the novel for those that abhor the character.
This is an excellent book, however, again well-written by Rowling. Reading all of the novels back-to-back (for the most part) makes it much easier to make connections and understand the action and the world that Harry Potter inhabits. As I said, I'll begin on The Half-Blood Prince next and then finish with Deathly Hallows immediately after. I'm excited to continue, which I feel is a sign of quality. Rowling has created this world and these characters that I want to continue visiting and learning about in more depth than the movies could ever provide. If you still haven't read these, WHY NOT? Get on it, y'all.
I really liked this one - the one thing I enjoyed a lot about Harry Potter is that it gets more complicated with each book, and while Voldemort is of course definitely evil, there are several shades of grey in the novel - even people that aren't evil can help it along as the bureaucracy in the novel shows. It's been such a long time since I read them so I can't remember many details, but something about this kind of reminded me of Nazi Germany but I'm not sure if I was overanalyzing.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever read His Dark Materials Trilogy? That was another young adult/children's series I enjoyed because it was more subtle with defining evil.
I haven't read His Dark Materials but I will need some more books soon! I might give those a try.
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