Customer Reviews

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: Child Edition

5 star:		(808)
4 star:		(156)
3 star:		(60)
2 star:		(29)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

After a long, highly anticipted wait for the fifth installment in the Harry Potter Series, I finally laid hands on my copy at just past midnight last night. I promptly began to read, and I have to say....I am somewhat disappointed in it. Though I believe J K Rowling to be an excellent writer in general, I found the fifth book not nearly as engrossing as the last three. In fact, throughout the entire first half I was left wondering, "when is something going to HAPPEN?!". I found Harry to be more irritating than anything else, what with his constant outbursts, lack of judgement, and incessant whining. Hermione seems to be the only character that is maturing at all. The plot was not as well developed as I thought it could have been (c'mon, there are like nine hundred pages here!), and frankly the resolution (if you can call it that) took an absurdly long time to arrive. [...] Don't get me wrong, it was nice to hear what Harry has been up to, and I genuinely adore this series as a whole. I just felt that JK Rowling's talent is seriously under-utilized here. There is a persistent lack of focus, a rambling, largely unexciting plot, and for the most part the characters become lost in the jumble. This could've been better!! I rate it 3 out of 5.

OotP was definitely a dissapointment compared to the rest of this wonderful series. Although it began to piece together some of the many questions the previous books introduced, the many chapters it took to get to those answers was a little painful. Harry's new teenage attitude is hard to deal with, the romance is fairly shallow, Hagrid is dumber than he usually is, and the new teacher at Hogwarts is more annoying than anything. Do read it to fill in the blank pieces of information regarding Harry, but chances are you won't find it as enjoyable as the other books.

And it shows. The pacing at points is very good, but too often there are long boring stretches; I don't mean the expositions of the previous books, either; I mean info-dumps that are not as well structured, and therefore, less enteraining. Harry has become quite whiny, even a little manic depressive, as puberty begins to take hold. This can deepen his character, but it is also bound to annoy. Much of Harry's charm has always been his easy-going attitude. The lessening of that aspect will no doubt bother some, as it bothered me, because Harry was slightly less sympathetic, and maybe a bit asympathetic.

The smoothness of the previous books has also diminished somewhat; you can almost hear Rowling's labored breathing as struggled trying to add suspense to the scene when the big lummox gets whacked.

The dialogue is often very stilted, and this was alarming to me. You'll notice it too, particuarly when Hermione is speaking. I hope Rowling didn't think she was writing a film script.

Maybe the biggest problem is the lack of focus. The story goes off on several tangents, as usual, but unlike in the past, the "side-quests" as it were, are not integral to the story. This accounts for the bloated page-count. There was a lot of extraneous stuff going on.

Maybe the most interesting thing is the new role of the house elves and how they will affect the fight with ole Voldie.

Overall, OotP just isn't smooth. The thing about the series is that the writing has been so clean, so unfettered, that the reader became entire immersed. Now, too must of the story is throwaway tripe, stuff that should have been edited out or saved for the next book; God knows Rowling will need some ideas. There is some new stuff, but none of it is terribly interesting, barely enough to justify forcing 900-odd pages on readers. The only reason you should read this is if you've read the others books or plan to. In fact, if you even plan to read the others, don't even pick up this book. Don't even read the jacket. You'll be turned off from the series. This is easily the weakest book, style and content-wise. That shouldn't be surprising. Rowling did show signs of weakness when she repeatedly delayed the release date. The desperation shows in this book all too clearly. I only hope she can recover.

I was a HP fanatic.... I ripped through the other volumes like there was no tomorrow (the 3rd being my favorite).
I felt like there was SO MUCH regurgitation of old material. Its one thing to remind us- yet a totally different thing to act like we had forgotten EVERYTHING.
And Harry... what is UP with him???
From the first chapter to the last- Harry shows himself to be this angry, bitter child. Yes, teenagers have a lot of angst- but by the middle of the book- I was like, ENOUGH ALREADY.
He really just got on my nerves- and he never let up.
He had a very pissy attitude throughout the book, and frankly- it got old.
I thought JKR could have done a lot better with the story line- I also felt like she wrote this book just because she was pressured to write another in the HP series and didnt really care about what she wrote. There were too many fragmented story lines... and the stories werent even that compelling... there were no surprises here. Even when she killed a major character. I was left feeling... 'that was it'?
And what was with Harry and Cho?... and even Dumbledore?
I finished the book without any respect for the characters nor the author... with the exception of Hermione and Neville.
They were probably the only saving grace to this book.

This book was quite simply the weakest of the series. While I love all of Rowlings' earlier Harry Potter books, I found this one repetative and downright boring in parts. As someone who often reads huge novels I was disappointed as I found myself skimming through yet another teen angst-filled chapter and desperately hoping that some sort of villain would appear, other then the obvious ones. I suspect Rowling was attempting to create a feeling of terror by keeping the enemies hidden, but all it ended up doing was making it seem as though there was no real villain. Also, for the 600 odd pages leading up to it, I found the climax pretty anti-climatic...Here's hoping Rowling can get this series back on track with the next book.

Jim Dale does it again -- his reading of "Order of the Phoenix" has to rank among his best of the five books so far. One of the most memorable new characters, Dolores Umbridge, is brought into fine form in this audiobook. I'll never be able to reread "Phoenix" again without hearing Jim's rendition of "Hem! Hem!" While I did notice a few inconsistencies in voices this time (there's one noticeable moment where he mixes up Mr. Weasley and Sirius), the audiobook does have a nice and lively pace, and Jim Dale does such a commendable job of giving each character such detailed attention. And considering the fact that he recorded over a entire day's worth of narration, it's a wonder he didn't make loads of mistakes. Most importantly, there is no such thing as a small character to Jim Dale -- every voice is unique and holds their own among the other voices. In fact, he's even aged Harry and Ron's voices a bit from the previous audiobooks. This has become a ritual for me...reading the book first and listening to the audiobook afterwards. I recommend to any Harry Potter fan the experience of listening to the multi-voiced talent of Jim Dale.

Jim Dale does an amazing job bringing Rowling's characters to life!! He gives each charater his or her own voice and personality. I know that I would not appreciate the Potter books half as much if I read them in the print edition. For example, I found myself laughing out loud when Dale described Loona Lovegood on the Hogworts Express-- I know that I probably would have just breezed right through this part in the print edition without much thought.

The story itself is awesome-- each book has become more "adult" and is much better than the last. I can't wait for the next installment!

I enjoyed this book like the others. I once read that in making movies, every scene should advance the plot. What I like about this books is that as elements are introduced, some of which seem unrelated or unimportant to the plot, they are always re-introduced into the plot later. This is true even with material from earlier books, and so, for instance, one of the teachers who seems worthless and pointless in the earlier books, ends up having a huge role in the history of Harry's life and an important reason for being at Hogwarts.
It's been sad that this is this generations Star Wars. I (and I'm 38) think it's better then Star Wars, because it has a consistant quality throughout the books that the Star Wars movies lost after the 2nd movie.

On the negative side, people have said that Harry was angry in these books and didn't like it. I felt differently. What I didnn't like though was that he did seem increadibly irresponsible. A major character made a huge sacrafice for Harry in the middle or this book in order to get Harry to do something. Harry didn't do it and it resulted in the death of another character. Although there were some explanations for this, I found it hard to respect Harry for being so irresponsible. Towards the end, Dumbledor (don't know the spelling as I get the audio tapes!) takes responsibility for this, but I think Harry is mainly responsible and it influenced my enjoyment of the book and my respect for Harry. To continue the Star Wars comparision, this book is somewhat like Empire Strikes back in that way, with the main character not keeping his responsibilities and faultering. But in Empire, Luke did it to save his friends (over his larger responsibilities) , here Harry faulters in a way that betrays the sacrafice of a friend and results in the death of another.

This review is STRICTLY a critique of the audio performance of Harry Potter and The Order Of The Phoenix, performed by Jim Dale. (Four word critique of book: Joanne Kathleen Rowling ROCKS! That is all.)

I've collected all of the audio recordings of the Harry Potter books, and up to now I've loved every one of Jim Dale's readings of the first three books. Starting with Goblet of Fire, however, with so many voices to keep track of, I've started to notice some inconsistencies in the voicings of certain characters (compare Dobby in the COS recording with Dobby in GOF and OoTP, for example). Also, in my opinion, some of the more dramatic parts of the books seem to lose some of the urgency when he reads it. It could be because he has to read somewhat for accuracy, and slower reading can sometimes take the steam out of "scenes" that happen much faster or have a more urgent/emotional tone. As a reader (and a fast one, at that!) I can hear and dramatize what's happening in the books to my liking, rather than let someone else interpret the voice inflections and emotional tones for me, so I qualify this observation by saying that it is completely subjective to my own personal tastes.

Having said this, Jim Dale's reading/performance still has the magic touch. Still soothing, still spot-on with most of the important voices, still great with most scenes in the story. Again I note some voicing inconsistencies, but to be fair there has to be at least a gaggle of voices to keep track of all at once (over 130, I think, has been reported). With that in mind, Mr. Dale's reading is a towering achievement.

In summary, if you've collected all of the audio recordings thus far, I wouldn't stop now--Jim's on a roll! If you've never purchased any of the Harry Potter audio books and are wondering what kind of quality you will be in for when purchasing this set (whether CD or Cassette), listen to the audio clip here on Amazon.com. You're in for a real treat.

... What makes Harry a great character is that he is very deep and certainly not perfect. So what if he spent the most of the book brooding over his problems? Thats 15 year olds do. He's going through [stuff] that you can't even imagine, and he has all the right in the world to be upset about it. Personally, I like it that he has become darker, it makes him more real to me. Now I can actually relate to him, insted of him annoying me with his foolish shows of unnessary nobility. Anyway, back to the review. I thought that Ootp was outstanding. The pages flew by at a remarkable rate. The action scenes were well written, keeping my eyes glued to the pages, and the character development far surpassed any of the previously installments. I felt Harry's pain. However, I have to say it wasn't quite as good as POA or GOF because it lacked the incredible plot twists that those books possessed. Everything was pretty straightforward. But despite this minor complaint, this was an excellent book that does a great job of moving the series along, and causing me to salivate over the next installment. (Hopefully it comes within 3 years).