OOP: I was disappointed, too

[Cindy C.]

No: HPFGUIDX 64391

Joywitch lamented:

> I have been thinking a lot about this, and although I hate to say 
>it, I didn't really enjoy reading OoP very much.

<winces>

Uh . . . it didn't do a whole lot for me, either, Joywitch.  

See, it got off to a reasonably enjoyable start, and I certainly 
appreciated JKR not giving a huge overblown summary of prior books as 
she has in the past.  I liked the first half better than GoF, 
definitely.  The new DADA teacher was nicely done -- somehow managing 
to stay far from the errors that ruined Lockhart.  We got to know 
Harry much better.  Lots of juicy background stuff.

But, oh, how it broke down in the middle.  I started skimming at 
Chapter 28, actually.  My main problem was the character 
development.  It seems that favorite characters were brought out for 
window dressing purposes.  I mean, if Moody and Lupin and Figg aren't 
going to do much relevant to the plot, well . . . why bother?

And major things just kind of fizzled.  Harry is jealous of Ron, 
which goes . . . nowhere, really.  Harry dates Cho, which goes . . . 
nowhere, really.

> And, there wasn't much character development -- with some major 
> exceptions, of course, such as Hermione, Ginny, Neville, 
>McGonagall, and (poor) Sirius.


Right.  And, sadly, I didn't much care when Sirius died.  He just, 
you know, died.  <shrug>  It was so *hollow.*  And none of the 
characters seemed to care all that much either.

Cindy -- who winced at Molly fussing over tea and dusting cabinets 
when there's an Evil Overlord on the loose