Genre: Fantasy
Rating: B
"The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir, beware."
Time to resume my love affair with J.K. Rowling’s bestselling Harry Potter novels, this time with the
second book in the series Harry Potter
and the Chamber of Secrets. You may
remember that in my review of Harry Potterand the Philosopher’s Stone I stated that I was unable to be unbiased in my
review of the book. That continues on
with this review, possibly even more so as Chamber
of Secrets is one of my favourite in the series.
It’s another year at Hogwarts and our favourite magical trio – Harry,
Ron, and Hermione – are back for their second year of schooling. This is possibly the most dangerous time of
all at Hogwarts, however, as the legendary Chamber of Secrets has been opened and
Slytherin’s monster has been unleashed on the school – and is attacking
students. Can they find the chamber and
stop the monster before the school gets shut down or, worse, before someone is
killed?
If the biggest flaw in Philosopher's Stoneis that it takes too long to really get to the point, then that is almost immediately solved in Chamber of Secrets. While there is still a bit of preamble, the plot itself is foreshadowed in an early at-the-Dursley's chapter with the appearance of the house elf Dobby (who is, in my opinion, one of the best characters introduced in this book), and the attacks begin following the Halloween chapter - which is relatively early on; the books each cover the course of approximately one year, starting typically around Harry's birthday at the end of July and continuing until the end of the school year in June. Once again the book is very anecdotal, or at least appears so, but the story is a lot more cohesive than its predecessor. There's far less opportunity for you to question where it's going or to get bored - not that you're likely to get bored with Philosopher's Stone- because there's more visible to the reader in this book. You still have all the questions about what's happening, but they're all relevant to the plot - what is the Chambe of Secrets, who is Slytherin's Heir and what is His monster? Rather than question it for a few chapters near the end you get to question it for a lot longer.
The other thing that I really liked about this novel is how much it foreshadows for the greater series - more so, in my opinion, than its predecessor and even some of the following books. Things that come up in Chamber of Secrets end up playing a far greater role in the overall series - some of them being so trivial that you overlook them when first introduced. I'm not going to point them all out here because that's part of the fun of reading, and re-reading, the series; seeing all the little details that Rowling put in there that you missed before, or could only really notice in hindsight.
If the biggest flaw in Philosopher's Stoneis that it takes too long to really get to the point, then that is almost immediately solved in Chamber of Secrets. While there is still a bit of preamble, the plot itself is foreshadowed in an early at-the-Dursley's chapter with the appearance of the house elf Dobby (who is, in my opinion, one of the best characters introduced in this book), and the attacks begin following the Halloween chapter - which is relatively early on; the books each cover the course of approximately one year, starting typically around Harry's birthday at the end of July and continuing until the end of the school year in June. Once again the book is very anecdotal, or at least appears so, but the story is a lot more cohesive than its predecessor. There's far less opportunity for you to question where it's going or to get bored - not that you're likely to get bored with Philosopher's Stone- because there's more visible to the reader in this book. You still have all the questions about what's happening, but they're all relevant to the plot - what is the Chambe of Secrets, who is Slytherin's Heir and what is His monster? Rather than question it for a few chapters near the end you get to question it for a lot longer.
The other thing that I really liked about this novel is how much it foreshadows for the greater series - more so, in my opinion, than its predecessor and even some of the following books. Things that come up in Chamber of Secrets end up playing a far greater role in the overall series - some of them being so trivial that you overlook them when first introduced. I'm not going to point them all out here because that's part of the fun of reading, and re-reading, the series; seeing all the little details that Rowling put in there that you missed before, or could only really notice in hindsight.
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