Review: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Thanks to insomnia this morning, I am now done with book 2. Ms Rowling has hit another one out of the park. While the beginning seemed a bit repetitious for a series that I doubt would have had many readers who hadn’t read the first one, the pace quickly picked up and we were off for a new adventure.

Ms Rowling did an excellent job of building on what she set up in the first book. Everything, including why Hagrid was expelled comes to the fore. I also enjoyed the realistic situation where Harry is forced to deal with obssessive fans this year around and what it makes others think about him.

Please no spoilers as this is my first time reading the series, but I’d have to say that at this point what I want is something akin to that Simpsons episode where Bart and Lisa lookalikes end up saving the animation studio. I want Harry and his Posse to risk it all breaking the rules and not have it lead to the bad guy. Or maybe Draco helping them save the day or something. In other words, while Ms Rowling does a great job on the journey, I’d like the destination to be a bit more of a surprise. At the very least, it’d be interesting if the villain wasn’t as tied together as books 1 and 2 were.

By next book, the crew will be third years, I’d like to see that factor into things a bit, too. Similar to what I said in the previous paragraph, perhaps Harry is going to feel a bit overconfident after winning twice and maybe that costs him something going forward.

Excited for the next book. And, as you can see by my score, these criticisms were not damning. It’s just something I’d like to see in the remaining five books.

View all my reviews