How did you feel about the 5th book overall?

[Hagger 9003]

yeh, whatever happens, im pretty confident. the books are good, and im enjoyin them so far. the new book wont be bad. JK has a good feelin about it, so im optimistic. apparently, it is something like 192 pages shorter than OotP, but im not sure. i saw it on mugglenet.

[Cedric]

Something like that, I don't understand how they could get worse. For me, they get better as they go along. Each book as more excitment then the previous one. So hopefully, this one will be fill with non-stop action from beginning to end.

[Tween_Luv]

yes, that would be nice. The books have been getting better! Although this one is a bit shorter, it still should be as good. Who says that the length of the book affects how good it is? I mean, The Pearl a amazingly well known book (kinda, not really book..uhh, i forgot what it was) and it barely tops 100 pages.

[Phoenix in the Ashes]

Yeah you can still put some really good stories together even if they're short. The thing is though, that JKR always put good stories together whether they are short or long, so, I would prefer a long long very very good story, to a short short very good story.
It just interests you for a longer period of time.

[Tween_Luv]

yeah, i agree with you. i was just saying that short stories aren't that bad. but, i definately would not want JKR to make the 6th book short, that would be very..irritating in a way, cause you'd read, then you'd finish, and re-read...and , well, you know what i mean

[Black_Princess]

Its a great book, but I hate the bit where Sirius Dies.

[Phoenix in the Ashes]

You hate it coz u don't like the writing, or you hate it because it's sad?

[Tanuki]

Something about the book just makes it a little uncomfortable to read

[Phoenix in the Ashes]

In what way? Can you describe it?

[Cedric]

Yeah, you kinda left a large hole there. What made me mad is that Harry never did anything back to Professor Umbridge. He always took the punishment out on other people instead of Umbridge herself. At least thats how I took it.

[Scarlet Lioness]

This isnt my favourite book in the series, but I still enjoyed it thoroughly!!! Especially since Harry has his first major crush and there was still major tension between Ron and Hermione!!!
It was very well written and I can't wait till July 16th!!!!!!!

[Tanuki]

Tension... more like bitterness. Somehow, it just makes me think that Hermione's opinion of Ron is actually lower than I thought it was.

As for how it was uncomfortable, I understand his emotions, but that just brings up all too familiar anger. Things I don't like a book bringing up

[thestral]

in my opinion i think that as the books get longer they get .. well not worse... but they start to drag and i don't think that either GoF or OotP were paticularly strong, they had good bits, like the ending of GoF was great and the 1st task but inbetween it was a bit slow and the same goes for OotP, there was just a quality in them that was lost or something. but i think the perfect length was PoA, it was long enough and not too short, perfect, it didn't drag at any time and it was by far the best.

also just re-read OotP cos i hadn't read it in like a year (too painful, sirius come back ) and it definitly makes you uncomfortable to read but not in a good way, tragedy should leave you with catharsis and i needed that when sirius died and i got...nothing. had to emnotionally cleanse in my head, but the book should do that! and i stand by my probably unpopular view that harry was badly written in that book, very flat, 2-D characterisation of his anger that to me felt very clunky and to me off-putting. i can see the intended effect but.. nah didn't work for me, but hey differrent people like different things.

[Phoenix in the Ashes]

I could see how it would be an awkward stage of the books to write though. The Book seemed to do it's purpose.

[thestral]

yeah, i agree with you phoenix, i've said before that i can see why it was the weakest part cos it was the hardest to write. i think angst/whining is a very thin line to walk and it's not only this book but i've read alot of books where they try to do it and very very few suceed. the angsty hero is a hard one to write but when it's written well, it is the most sublime, capitivating character for the audience to read. byronic heroes are the hardest and best characters in literature in my opinion.(ah heathcliff, just why do i love you so?)

so alas harry was nearly there but not quite. still i can appreciate the intended effect, but it's hard to ignore when it effects every area of the book and i'm going 'shut up and sit down you fool!' (stop yelling at poor ron and hermione). so to go back to my original point yes it does it's purpose, better in bits than others but i enjoyed it cos it revealed more info and carried the story along, i just had to block out the bits i didn't like (hard cos harry is like 99% of the book...)