Proper First Impressions....

[Catherine Coleman]

OK, now I've calmed down a bit (ie, slept for a few hours), here's some 
initial impressions.

B
O
O
K

S
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X

I
N

A

Y
E
A
R
?




It was *fast*.  At the beginning, I felt as though we were being 
bombarded with new faces, facts, events...  a great atmosphere of, 
confusion and chaos for Harry.  Very well done.

Harry - I was glad she made him so angry and frustrated.  Losing his 
temper does him good.  But - I was furious with him for a few reasons. 
For not going to Snape to apologise and to resume lessons, and for 
forgetting Snape was one of the OoP.  For missing out on talking to 
Sirius (the mirror), for being completely clueless with girls, although 
I admit Cho's behaviour was enough to confound any 15 yr old boy.  Oh, 
and for answering back Umbridge too many times - the detentions were 
torture to read - and there were far too many of them.  And why didn't 
he tell anyone about that?!

This book did not have the lightness of the others, but a few things 
made me laugh.  Although, I was absolutely furious with her for making 
me chuckle over "Look, I didn't learn joined-up writing for nothing, you 
know!" V. evil.

Big confession.  On initial reading, I found myself liking Ron again.

A lot of anger at Dumbledore for not explaining things earlier. 
Sirius's death was so unnecessary!  That's probably why I am so upset 
and angry about it.

As much as I have loved Hagrid, I thought he was superfluous to this 
book.

Delighted that I was right about Ginny, and I hope there was enough of 
her there to convince everyone else that there *was* always more to her 
than meets the eye.  And I was glad that Neville got much more time as 
well.

Shipping - I haven't really had time to think about it - bigger things 
happened.

I thought there was going to be much more about Lily - I'm starting to 
worry that we're not going to get as much back story as I'd like.

Horrified that Sirius and James behaved so badly, even if they were only 
15.  Harry was quite right when he compared their age with his.  Ugh.

Catherine