March Books 6) Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, by J.K. Rowling

[nwhyte]

I thought on first reading it that this was one of the less successful of the Harry Potter books, and my prejudices were confirmed re-reading it now. It's rather marking time between the scene-setting of volume 1 and the big reveals of volume 3. It's also marred by the poor world-building of the politics of wizardry - the nature of the power

Comments

[redfiona99]

It's probably my least favourite of the books too.

Re: why no new wand for Ron? Because Ron would flip out and claim he didn't want anyone's pity/charity and generally get into a teenage boy sulk about it, and at that point Harry isn't sneaky enough to give him a new wand without Ron finding out who its from.

[seawasp]

Harry isn't USED to being rich and doesn't think that way. I think that before he became a wizard he may never have had ANY money to spend.

Buying brooms for the whole team may not even be legal for a kid -- assuming he could trot off to Diagon Alley and make a withdrawal, since they don't appear to have credit cards or ATMs and thus if he wanted to buy something for the team he'd have to BE there.

Redfiona of course got it for the reason he didn't buy a wand for Ron. He wouldn't want to accept it. And I suspect his parents wouldn't accept charity from a child either.

[scbutler]

Azkban is far and away my favorite as well. After that the books started getting way too long.

Rowling's strength is in the small details - she is really a genius in those. But her world-building - oy!