The War against Voldemort is not going well; even Muggle governments are noticing. Ron scans the obituary pages of the Daily Prophet, looking for familiar names. Dumbledore is absent from Hogwarts for long stretches of time, and the Order of the Phoenix has already suffered losses.
And yet….
As in all wars, life goes on. Sixxth-year students learn to Apparate – and lose a few eyebrows in the process. The Weasley twins expand their business. Teenagers flirt and fight and fall in love. Classes are never straightforward, thought Harry receives some extraordinary help from the mysterious Half-Blood Prince.
So it’s the home front that takes center stage in the multilayered sixth installment of the story of Harry Potter. Here at Hogwarts, Harry will search for the full and complex story of the boy who became Lord Voldemort – and thereby find what may be his only vulnerability.
“As Harry gets older, Rowling gets better….She has looted the shelves of literature and mythology, fairy tales and folklore, anthropology and comparative religion, firing up a pop-culture crockpot and adding pratfalls, wordplay and dread….Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is rich and satisfying”-----John Leonard, The New York Times Book Review
Rowling has not lost her flair as a storyteller or her ability to keep coming up with new gimcracks to astound her readers. But her true skills lie in the way she ages Harry, successfully evolving him from the once downtrodden yet hopeful young boy to this new, gangly teenager showing all the symptoms of adolescence.”