The Phoenix Rose Again

The copy of Harry Potter V that my mother in law ordered for the kids arrived in Monday's mail. I won't be going to visit the kids at camp until the weekend, and the camp isn't accepting mailed packages (for security reasons), so I simply had no choice... I had to read it myself ;-) With the head start I got by reading the first nine chapters of the copy that my wife had ordered on Saturday night, I had no trouble finishing the whole thing by late Tuesday -- even allowing for sleep and (some) work.

My impression is that it's not quite as good a read as the fourth book was, but it did live up to my expectations. Here's one criticism...

In book IV, the major climax occurs and there's still a lot left to read. As the explanation of the first climax is unfolding a second climax occurs, and then a third. The one thing I didn't like about book V was the fact that the action reaches its climax 50 pages before the end, and the rest is all explanation of what has already happened. This just goes on a bit too long. Admittedly, part of the reason is that some loose ends from the earlier books are tied up in the explanation, and some essential character development is also taken care of, but I still think that it was just a little too much. It would have been better, actually, if some of the explanation and character development had been deferred until the beginning of the next book.