475. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
Rating: ☆☆☆☆
Recommended by:
Author: J.K. Rowling
Genre: Fiction, Young Adult, Fantasy
652 pages, published September 16, 2006
Reading Format: Audiobook on Overdrive
Summary
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is the sixth book in J.K. Rowling’s epic saga and follows Harry, Ron and Hermione in their sixth year at Hogwarts. Ron and Hermione are prefects, Harry is captain of Griffindor’s quiditch team and all are struggling with teenage hormones and angst. While Voldemort is regrouping with the death eaters in support, Dumbledore is preparing Harry for the battle that lays ahead.
Quotes
“Do you remember me telling you we are practicing non-verbal spells, Potter?”
“Yes,” said Harry stiffly. “Yes, sir.” “There’s no need to call me “sir” Professor.” The words had escaped him before he knew what he was saying.”
“It is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more.”
“He accused me of being Dumbledore’s man through and through.”
“How very rude of him.”
“I told him I was.”
Dumbledore opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again. Fawkes the phoenix let out a low, soft, musical cry. To Harry’s intense embarrassment, he suddenly realized that Dumbledore’s bright blue eyes looked rather watery, and stared hastily at his own knee. When Dumbledore spoke, however, his voice was quite steady.
“I am very touched, Harry.”
“Let us step into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure.”
“Dumbledore says people find it far easier to forgive others for being wrong than being right.”
“It was, he thought, the difference between being dragged into the arena to face a battle to the death and walking into the arena with your head held high. Some people, perhaps, would say that there was little to choose between the two ways, but Dumbledore knew – and so do I, thought Harry, with a rush of fierce pride, and so did my parents – that there was all the difference in the world.”
“You’d think people had better things to gossip about,” said Ginny as she sat on the common room floor, leaning against Harry’s legs and reading the Daily Prophet. “Three Dementor attacks in a week, and all Romilda Vane does is ask me if it’s true you’ve got a Hippogriff tattooed across your chest.”
Ron and Hermione both roared with laughter. Harry ignored them.
What did you tell her?”
I told her it’s a Hungarian Horntail,” said Ginny, turning a page of the newspaper idly. “Much more macho.”
Thanks,” said Harry, grinning. “And what did you tell her Ron’s got?”
A Pygmy Puff, but I didn’t say where.”
“Why are you worrying about YOU-KNOW-WHO, when you should be worrying about YOU-NO-POO? The constipation sensation that’s gripping the nation!”
“Harry looked around; there was Ginny running toward him; she had a hard blazing look in her face as she threw her arms around him. And without thinking, without planning it, without worrying about the fact that fifty people were watching, Harry kissed her. After several long moments, or it might have been half an hour-or possibly several sunlit days- they broke apart.”
“And Harry saw very clearly as he sat there under the hot sun how people who cared about him had stood in front of him one by one, his mother, his father, his godfather, and finally Dumbledore, all determined to protect him; but now that was over. He could not let anybody else stand between him and Voldemort; he must abandon forever the illusion he ought to have lost at the age of one, that the shelter of a parent’s arms meant that nothing could hurt him. There was no waking from this nightmare, no comforting whisper in the dark that he was safe really, that it was all in his imagination; the last and greatest of his protectors had died, and he was more alone than he had ever been.”
My Take
It was a pleasure to read the sixth Harry Potter book as I continue to work my way through the audio versions of this classic series. As with all of the installments, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince did not disappoint. J.K. Rowling is truly such a talented and creative writer and listening to the excellent and exuberant voice work of actor Jim Dale is a rare treat.
