The Half Blood Prince

When we picked up the book Harry Potter and the Cursed Child several years ago at a midnight release party at Barnes & Noble I made plans to read it once the Heinisch children had finished it.  I told them that I wanted to reread all of the seven books in the Harry Potter series first.  There was so much that I didn't remember from the books and thought that the Cursed Child would be even better if I refreshed my memory.  My goal, unfortunately, kept getting pushed off for other projects.  With all of the down time recently due to the stay at home order, however,  I finally had time to work on my original reading goal from several years ago.  I picked back up where I left off with my second reading of the Harry Potter series and yesterday finished number six, "Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince."

I remember when I first read the book a decade ago that I was completely disappointed in it.  I thought that the first 3/4 of it was boring and a little comfusing.  I was also extremely disappointed that Dumbledore died and was in shock that Professor Snape was the villian that Harry always proclaimed him to be.  Reading it the second time, however, was a completely different experience as I had the knowledge of how the series would end. I was still sad, probably even more so, that Dumbledore died, but knowing that Snape would be vindicated in book seven made the Half Blood Prince so much more enjoyable.  I was also fascinated by the small details throughout the story.  The support characters and their backstory added to the enjoyment of the book.

Tonight Doug and I started the movie that was based upon the 6th Harry Potter book.  Neither of us had seen it in quite some time.  I was especially interested in watching it after just finishing the book. I was surprised at first by how different it was from what I had read.  The plot was the same but the details had been changed greatly.  Characters were removed from the story altogether and the movie-goer was allowed in on the secrets of the death eaters well before the reader ever was.  It didn't ruin the movie for me, but I did find it fascinating that the screenwriter changed so much of the book.  I wasn't sure if it was to shorten it for a film version or to keep the production on budget.  Either way, I really enjoyed both versions of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and can't wait to finish the series with the Deathly Hollows.