20/100: Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets

 I am officially done with re-reading the HP books I have already read... all two of them :) But I'm feeling more motivated to continue on with the series so my hopes are high that I will have read the entire series by the end of this year.

I have to say, I liked Sorcerer's Stone better; the story seemed to move quicker and I was more engaged with the storyline. I find it funny because in my opinion, the second book is usually better than the first (case in point: Catching Fire vs. Hunger Games).

That's not to say I disliked Chamber of Secrets, on the contrary, I enjoyed the level of mystery in this book. I thought Rowling injected a kind of whodunnit air to the story with the integral question "who is Slytherin's heir and who opened the Chamber of Secrets." I think this was the main motivator that kept me moving through the pages. On the other hand, I feel like some scenes kind of dragged in places.

Sometimes I put myself in Harry's shoes and think about what I would have done in those situations, as an 11-12 year old. I have to laugh, honestly, because I probably would have peed my pants. I understand that for the purposes of the plot Harry had to begin the series as a pre-teen, but some of the things he finds himself doing feels a little unbelievable to me. I know, it's a fantasy series, the whole point of the genre is that it's not reality, but still...

Ultimately, this series is fun and enjoyable so far. The characters are diverse, the content is clean (unless you find magic, spell casting, and witches and wizards offensive, which I can totally understand), and the plot is compelling. Most of the characters are likeable which is lucky for me because I'm one of those people that truly cannot connect with an unlikable character. Yes, Snape is irritating, but I haven't reached the point yet where I hate him with all my being. I might get burned at the stake for this, but the one character I truly despised in this story was Dobby.

I'm excited for Prisoner of Azkaban because I did like the movie and my sister says this is her favorite book in the series.

Stats:
Completed: Mar 17
Rating: 4 stars
Pages: 341

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

36/100: Read It And Weep

Image
Read It And Weep is the fifth installment in the Library Lover's Series by Jenn McKinlay. They are cozy mysteries set in a small town on the east coast. I love reading these kinds of books because they are the ones I don't have to pay too much attention to. The plot is simple and engaging, very much a whodunnit type of setting, and they are just fast-paced enough to keep my attention but not so fast that my heart pounds in my chest :) I tend to use these books as palate cleansers when I find myself in a bit of a book slump or have just finished reading a more intense story. I can get done with them fairly quickly and move on to the next title in my TBR pile... something that is ever-growing. I will say that I did not enjoy this one as much as its predecessors. The author inserted a love triangle into the mix, a trope that I will never feel drawn to. Plus, I found myself irritated through the majority of the book because the main characters refused to communicate. I kept thi
Read more

March Wrap-Up + Thoughts

Image
March has been crazy, scary, and confusing; let's be honest! The whole month has been fraught with uncertainty and I'm kinda glad it's over, but reading-wise, it ended up being a banner month for me. I felt like I was transported back when I was a homeschool kid with nothing better to do after finishing her lessons than to curl up on the couch and read for a few hours. On a tangent, my mom used to do this reading program with my sister and I during our summers. It kind of cracks me up now to think about it because in no way did my sister and I need any encouragement to read more than we already did, but I imagine it was a way to keep us focused on more academic things, and away from the T.V. all of the time, even when we were on break. The goal was to read at least a certain number of books between the months of June and August... I want to say it was 60 books but I honestly can't remember. We kept track much like I do right now... a running list of the title, autho
Read more

8/100: Book, Line, and Sinker

Image
I managed to slide one more book into January! After The Brutal Telling , I needed a palate cleanser, so I went with Book, Line, and Sinker by Jenn McKinlay. A little backstory: I checked out the first book in this series from my local library. My mom read it after me and we both enjoyed it so much, we wanted to continue on with the series. However, our library does not have all the books and also did not have the next one in the series. So, we did what any good readers do, and ordered them off Ebay. As books go, they were fairly cheap, mainly because they are in the small, mass-market paperback format. So now we have almost the entire series. I don't think we have the newest one she put out, I'm pretty sure she published one in 2019. But we have enough to last us for awhile :) I enjoy these because they are about a librarian living in a small town called Briar Creek in Connecticut. Someday I would love to travel to New England and experience the small, shore-side towns t
Read more