2007 50 Book Challenge: Book Five - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling

I posted this on the Harry Potter Read-Along group in Facebook as well.

okey doke... thoughts on Chamber of Secrets: - this is probably by far my least favourite of the books. It doesn't have the magic of the first where we are introduced to everything and it doesn't have the complexity and drama of books 4-6. The whole event with Aragog is too much of a distraction for a red herring and there just seems to be too many disparate things going on, like the Ford Anglia, theWhomping Willow, etc. I didn't like Lockhart or Myrtle or Dobby and the DeathDay party seemed unnecessary. However even given these complaints I still found the book entertaining. I still laughed when the car came to the rescue in the forest. I will grant that there are so many aspects of the story to come that are introduced in this book. I guess I just don't believe JKR did such a great job of pulling them all together as coherently as she's able. I enjoyed the introduction of Lucius Malfoy (and his obvious influence on Draco) and Tom Riddle and Cornelius Fudge (what a change of character this guy goes through between Chamber of Secrets and Half-Blood Prince). Such great historical content going on here. The magic was good too, with the diary, the basilisk, mandrakes, skele-gro, polyjuice potion and duelling club. But again, there was just too much stuff for such a small book. Dobby being set free was fun too but then after that the goodbyes for summer holidays happened in one page! - I've read these books over and over and only now have I seen the foreshadowing that Snape is a Legilimens! In both books so far, Harry makes some comment about Snape seeming to be able to read his mind. LOL I'm so dense sometimes... - I wondered too about the similarities between Tom and Harry. JKR made it a point to highlight the fact that the two looked similar. And for a little while I believed that there was some genetic connection between them. But I think that overall it was just one more red herring to make everyone think that Harry might be Slytherin's heir. Which is another reason I didn't like this book as much. JKR seemed to go a bit overboard in trying to distract us from the real culprit. We probably could have done without thinking that Tom and Harry looked alike. - Ginny: As much as she ends up being such a central character in this book, there's very little said about her. Even up to Book 6 she never gets pushed into the forefront, always remaining a secondary character to the trio and even Draco, Crabbe and Goyle. Later on, there's not even any mention regarding how this encounter with Riddle and his diary has affected her. It's like it didn't even happen. Perhaps she didn't suffer any ill-effects but you would think Harry would find it helpful to use what Ginny experienced in his fight against Voldemort. Then again, Ginny is just a first year here and she may not have been able to glean anything helpful from Riddle or his diary... ah well, enough analysis. On to book 3!