Barnes & NobleHarry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowling

THIS BOOK HAS MORE TWISTS AND TURNS THAN QUIDDITCH

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is a book worth reading. With everything going on in the world this book had enough interesting side plots, characters, and drama - along with the actual plot - to entertain virtually any reader. I thoroughly enjoyed every single detail of this book. Harry Potter goes from being shut away at the Dursleys for the entire summer without a word from anyone to being tried at the Ministry of Magic for defending himself and his cousin Dudley from two rouge dementors. Although Harry is very moody for the first few chapters, we can see where he is coming from and are on the same page, in terms of not being given information. After Harry is cleared of all charges and knows he isn’t going to be expelled from Hogwarts we can see a positive turn in this book; however, we know that there is no way this is going to be a normal year. We find that we are correct when we meet Professor Umbridge, this woman is a pivotal character in this book. We get a feel for who she is when she didn’t vote to clear Harry of all charges during his trial. She is introduced as the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic and is at Hogwarts to fulfill the Defense Against the Dark Arts teaching position. She is completely in love with anything that has to do with rules or the Ministry of Magic. Of course, Harry who has never really followed the rules was immediately given detention. His detention, however, wasn’t because he broke a rule but because he told her that Voldemort was back. She refused to believe this because all summer the Daily Prophet, run by the Ministry, had been calling Harry and Dumbledore “nutters” and that they couldn’t be trusted with their lies. Hagrid is nowhere to be found at the beginning of this book and Dumbledore, too, is uncommonly distant; we find out later that Hagrid had been visiting the Giants and it had not gone well. Throughout this book Harry is having the most visions and the most pain in his scar of all time; it makes sense because in the last book Voldemort regained his full power. The main vision Harry had is the corridor leading to the Department of Mysteries. In this vision, he is walking towards the door and each time he has this vision he gets farther and farther into seeing what Voldemort is trying to find in there. One night Harry had this vision but instead of waking up before he got to the door, he was a snake and attacked Arthur Weasley. He immediately alerted Professor McGonagall who brought him straight to Dumbledore. Because of Harry Arthur was found in time and lived. After this Harry is supposed to study Occlumency, shutting the mind from Voldemort’s penetration, with Snape but that rapidly goes downhill. Due to this inability to close his mind, Harry sees Voldemort torturing Sirius, Harry’s Godfather, in the Department of Mysteries. This lures Harry out to try and save him. This long journey of saving Sirius was a high-speed rollercoaster and it doesn’t stop there. I won’t write any spoilers but this book is worth the read. J.K. Rowling has created the entire Harry Potter universe with 4 books before this one in the series: Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. There are two more books in this series: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. All of these are great reads and I am excited to continue this magnificent series!!