Рецензия на книгу

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  LittleGhost21 июля 2023 г.

  Keep thinking I need to see it through. I’ve started rereading yet again, so many years after I’ve happily distanced myself from the wizarding world. Listening to audiobooks for the first time works like a charm.

  But the novel itself — man is it tiring. Newbies Lockhart and Creevey were hellishly annoying, and that much effort put into annoying characters is super unfair. Took a lot outta me to bear with those two. The parts recounting events of the first book could've also just… not happen.

  Speaking of which, many of ’em questions I had in “Philosopher’s Stone” were still bothering me here.
  — Something is seriously off with Mrs. Author’s continued inclination to describe people as “fat”.
  — Crazy, violent ghosts on school territory, can’t someone banish them because, hello, they’re dangerous?
  — Let’s not forget — hats off to the school board who suck profoundly at choosing certain teachers. Second year in a row. Bet they don’t even check the CVs…

  Do not appreciate, no, not at all that I am heavily led to believe Gryffindor is the coolest. Its students are all cuties, and the Slytherins are, with no exceptions, horrible twats. I want my Gryffindors shining different colors, I want my Slytherins having a plethora of personalities in their midst, I want not to be fed one-sidedness.

  We see that, of co-o-ourse, Dumbledore disliked young Tom Riddle. Precisely the kind of cliché manipulation I, a reader, didn’t need. I would like it to have been more complicated than that.

  Tell me also how, in a building full of magically able people, no one ever fixed poor Ron’s wand? I know it’s a running joke throughout the book and even drives the plot at the end, but it feels strained in the first place. Not the professors, not any of the students. Broken wand is a hazard, for chrissake.

  Both books so far lead me to think Rowling doesn’t like her main heroine. Or has no clue how to respectfully write one. What’s the point of a clever protagonist if her scholar abilities and eagerness to learn are constantly ridiculed? Hermione hits too close to home, I admit. I was her. I loved school, didn’t dread exams, enjoyed showing off when I knew the answer, people asked to copy my homework — but even personal attachment aside, I feel that she deserves more. More fair treatment, less being a laughingstock.

  Writing’s repetitive. Even with the good bits, a “very” rears its ugly head and ruins the impression, characters always “beam” at each other, feelings are expressed through countless stomach drops, gut twists, and heart leaps. That hasn’t changed since “Philosopher’s Stone”; more still, reading “The Prisoner of Azkaban” now, and she pulls the same shit there — third time over.

  Gloomy undertones of creeping fear, worry, and devastation, especially when Ginny disappeared, were top-shelf material for me. I know I’ll get more of this in the following installments. Still, it’s amusing to revisit the series after a large break, remember things, and change some old opinions.
  

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