Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: a brief review

taken from harrypottershop.com

Well folks, it's been a short while since I've been on this thing. Newborns take up a lot of time and - even more so - mental energy. Yep that's right: our beautiful baby girl was born October 4 at about 11 pm after an extremely long day (full and probably way too long birth story coming very soon). Blogging hasn't been high on the priority list these last couple weeks, and neither has reading. I did manage to pick away at good ol' HP #2 in between feedings and naps, though, and it seems that a couple pages at a time does eventually equal an entire book, and I finally finished it yesterday.

Harry goes back to Hogwarts for his second year, despite the warnings of a tiny house elf that appears at Harry's aunt and uncle's house telling him not to. It soon becomes obvious that maybe the strange elf was onto something, though, when Harry starts hearing threatening voices in his head and when classmates start falling victim to some unseen monster haunting the hallways. Harry, Ron, and Hermione dive into trying to solve the mystery of the Chamber of Secrets, the fabled source of the school's monster.

I enjoyed this book, just like I enjoyed the first one, but I will say that I found it to be a little bit more flat. Maybe it was just how little I was able to read at a time, but the plot felt a little simplistic and slow to me. And in the end - I'll try not to give any spoilers - Harry's interactions with who ended up being the bad guy were not even close to scary or even intimidating. I felt like that scene was a chance for J.K. to continue to set a foundation for why this bad guy is terrifying and enduring and super crafty and instead it all came off seeming like a bad joke. Granted...I am a grown woman reading these books for the first time instead of a small child. So maybe I'm being a little harsh. Regardless of the less than scary bad guy, though, I'm still interested in the series and continuing to find out about Harry and all his future adventures. He really does seem to be quite the helpful little guy, doesn't he?