Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, J.K. Rowling
And my reread/rediscovery continues! This is definitely not my favourite of the series, owing to an unfortunate two week trip to France for which my mother made me pack only two books. This was one of them, Prisoner of Azkaban, the other. The latter didn’t suffer from the multiple readings (sometimes multiple times in one day) as much as this one did. Still, it’s been a long time, so it wasn’t too annoying — and I’d even contrived to forget the sequence of some of the events.
Actually, I’m enjoying the reread more than I really anticipated. It’s nice to come back to Harry Potter now the hype’s died down a bit; to read it not because it’s a cultural monolith and people are saying I have to, but because I feel like it. Helps that I don’t have anything to prove, too; once it caught on in school, there were years where I just had to be reading more literary stuff, just because high school.
It’s nice to come to these books for the friendships between Ron, Harry and Hermione; for the funny moments with Lockhart; for Dobby; for that thrill when it comes to the idea of Knockturn Alley… for the bravery and heroism of Harry, who isn’t particularly strong or smart (Hermione is a better witch than Harry a wizard, it’s very clear), who has been thrown into the path of great events, and does what he can.
Rating: 3/5
This isn’t my favourite, either. But I think Order of the Phoenix is worse (and about 300 pages longer…).
I did like Lockhart, though, he’s hilarious.
Hermione is the best witch ever, I kind of wish Rowling would write a book about her, not Harry. 🙂
It’s the sheer repetition of having to read it every day for two weeks, sometimes more than once a day, to stop myself going mad. (I didn’t get on with the other kids, to the point where they kept telling me to kill myself, so yeahhh…) Order of the Phoenix is where I stopped reading originally, so don’t scare me away, haha.