View From the Bushes

Well, I finished the fifth Harry Potter book. It was a very nice diversion. Lately I've been getting mired in all of the stuff I have to worry about with DireKobold, to the point where I was in a pretty foul mood. And I guess the best thing I can say about the book was that it was immersive enough to make me completely forget about all that crap. So as to the central question of any review, would I recommend it? Yes. Is it flawless? No. Would it have benefited from more Jackie-Chan-like King Fu scenes? What book wouldn't? (Certainly The Awakening could have really used some.)

More good points: The Weasley Twins really come into their own in this one. Harry has matured in a believable fashion. Hagrid is still as loveably clueless about dangerous animals as ever. The Dursleys come across in a bit more well-rounded fashion than they have in the previous four books. The way she introduced beaurocracy as the major villain in the story was both very believable and very unconventional especially for a fantasy novel. The story in general flowed very well and always had something just around the corner to look forward to.

The bad points: It's difficult to discuss the bad points without spoiling the book, but since my wife will leave me if I do I'll give it my best shot. Certain elements of the plot rely on characters acting in unbelievable ways. Keeping secret things that they have no reason to or forgetting things that would never be forgotten or acting a manner which ill-befits the situation. Also it's too long and many of the things I mentioned above actually might have fixed themselves if the book were just shortened.