Mmmmmmm...decisive power gaps
I have to say that I really did enjoy reading the new Harry Potter book, at least the first 500 or pages of it. Then I realized, wow, this is only a 650 page book! Where the %&$@ is all the plot/action? And then, stuff goes down...really really fast like, much unlike the 5th book where everything(well, everything but Harry at least) was drawn out and deliberate. So, I ended up feeling much less satisfied after finishing than I felt while reading. Then again, that might have to do with the fact that since Dumbledore died there was no extra chapter where Dumbledore explains everything. So, the ending was a little quick and unsatisfying. I'm left with no option than to expect the 7th book to have a whole lot of stuff in it that actually makes clear all of this stuff.
Also, I guess I have to say that despite knowing that Dumbledore was probably going to die, there was a moment when I thought that Snape might die, considering the whole ubreakable curse stuff going on. I'm still not convinced that he's evil, because Dumbledore's no idiot. What really irks me about the Dumbledore death is that it was so unceremonial and rather disgraceful for a man of his stature. I really felt that if he was going to die, it would have been in some spectacular fashion. Now I'm left feeling that I never really experienced the true extent of Dumbledore's abilities. Plus I wanted to hear the story of his hand dying. Plus this was the best book yet for Dumbledore's, showcasing much more depth (mostly emotionally I guess) in his character. And he was always oddly funny. And by oddly funny I mean ridiculously so.
I didn't mind the romance in general as much as I probably should have. Ok I admit the Ron Lavender thing was a little annoying, and the absense of any character development in Ron and Hermoine was similarly troubling, but I can't say I hate Harry being with Ginny, since Ginny can be pretty cool. Naturally almost all of the romance stuff was quite awkward, but I suppose that can't be helped in a school environment and with 15-16 year olds. Actually now that I think about it, the funniest thing about it all was definitely all the references to "the beast" within Harry. Those were incredible. They made him out to be some kind of strange sex-offender type person. Very funny.
Anyways, I preferred the pace of this book to that of the 5th, which was agonizing at times with all the emo-Harry + grumpy-other-characters. It really wasn't that bad, plenty of it was enjoyable. But it just leaves so much open that I can only hope that the 7th book is very dense, and yet, even if it is, it leaves me thinking that Harry will be so desolate by then that the book will be less enjoyable.
Oh, also funny that Draco had more depth than any of Harry's friends in this book, period.
Maybe I'll write some other time about the other thing occupying some of my time: Bleach. I have to say that the anime is pretty awesome, and having read a bit of the manga, its good too.