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Assuming you haven’t been living under a rock for the past couple weeks, you’re probably well aware of the fact that J.K. Rowling unleashed the sixth book in the Harry Potter series, titled Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

I received this as a birthday gift (pre-ordered from Amazon), it arrived with my regular USPS mail on Saturday. Amazon made up a special box to ship this book - something I suppose is worth doing when you’ve pre-sold 1.3 million copies of the thing. Due to what some would call poor planning on my part, I didn’t actually get to start reading the book until Sunday afternoon… it was a long wait indeed :)

I thought this read much quicker than the prior books - it is 652 pages long but still possible to sit down and read the whole thing. I’m not a particularly fast reader, but I’d guess that it only took me about 5 or 6 hours to read this book. Compare that to the prior book Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix which was 870 pages and took me a couple days to read.

After reading this book and thinking about it for a while, I believe Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is still my favorite in the series. Many interesting things happen in the Half-Blood Prince, but I was just disappointed with the ending.

Warning: Spoilers Ahead

I’m not terribly upset with Dumbledore dying, but more in the way the story just abruptly ended. One minute, you’ve got Hogwarts being attacked by Death Eaters, and within the span of a few short pages the book wraps up. The action didn’t seem as exciting in this book as it did in the Order of the Phoenix when the Ministry of Magic was under attack.

I look forward to the next book in the series where J.K. Rowling will perhaps explain some of what happened in a little more detail. Personally, I don’t think Dumbledore is really dead… I think he’ll still have an important role in the next book somehow. I think Fawkes will also make an appearance in the final installment in the series.

That said, it was still a treat to read the Half-Blood Prince. Now I’m just hoping that it won’t take another two years for the next book to be published.