Musings of a Loquacious Mind

Two Books Recently Finished

I have recently finished reading (actually, rereading in both cases) two books for the 50 Books in 2007 challenge.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Here's how I started reading Harry Potter – when home from college one weekend we went to the mountains to look at scenery. Well, everyone in my family takes a book, because otherwise you think you are going right over the edge as my father is undaunted by the precipitous edges of mountain roads and undeterred from driving at what I would classify as dangerous speeds (let's not talk about how nerve-wracking it is when he is too busy looking at the scenery to drive properly!).

At any rate, I was out of book! And feeling queasy! And the only book available was my little brothers 'weird wizard book' – Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (yes, I started with book 2). As I was green to the gills, I chose the weird wizard book. And was hooked.

By the time JK Rowling was adding in messages against slave labor and her political statements, I was too invested to not read future books. I lump Rowling into the same sort of existence as George Lucas – I do thank you wholeheartedly for your contribution to pop culture, but I think you are a big, fat liar when you say you had a grand plan from the beginning, and think you are really too full of your own self importance. Injunctions to keep people from reading books they bought when the store just happened to sell a few erroneously? I mean, really.

I feel like Harry Potter has become later seasons of a good television show – the characters are all still there, and there is a shadow of the same show, but it is not the same.

By this point, I do not feel the need to "spoiler" the below, as I feel that anyone that really wanted to read the book would have, and everything else is pure speculation on my part, not based in any inside knowledge (ha).

I always buy the UK version, to keep my collection the same throughout, but I do read the US version when it first comes out because it takes a while for my book to ship from over seas. After reading the book the first time, I felt certain that Dumbledore was as dead as Gandalf the Grey. I didn't realize until it was pointed out to me how explicit they made it for American readers. Below is a short passage, first from the UK version, then from the US version.

[…] He told me to do it or he'll kill me. I've got no choice." "Come over to the right side Draco, and we can hide you more completely than you can possibly imagine. What is more, I can send members of the Order to your mother tonight to hide her likewise. Your father is safe at the moment in Azkaban […]

[…] He told me to do it or he'll kill me. I've got no choice." "He cannot kill you if you are already dead. Come over to the right side Draco, and we can hide you more completely than you can possibly imagine. What is more, I can send members of the Order to your mother tonight to hide her likewise. Nobody would be surprised that you had died in your attempt to kill me — forgive me, but Lord Voldemort probably expects it. Nor would the Death Eaters be surprised that we had captured and killed your mother — it is what they would do themselves, after all. Your father is safe at the moment in Azkaban […]

And that's all I have to say about that.

Bad Heir Day

Seriously, why do I have this book? When I was in middle school I used to buy Harlequin Romance novels, because I read all the time and these were abundantly available - 6/$1 at the local library. Most were stupid, quite a few I didn't finish, but they were, by in large, not even close to raunchy or randy. They were truly romances. I can actually remember a few that I actually liked. Well, about as much as I liked Baby-Sitters Club Super Summer editions in elementary school – they were fluff.

Anyway, this book was another UK import, and I believe that there must be British Chick Lit out there that does not involve women who are constantly on the wrong end of things with double entendres and who don't comment at least once a book on the state of their underarm hair, but I haven't found it. This book was fluff, but not really good fluff, and I think is a perfect candidate for some form of removal (I am loathe to rid myself of any book, really, but I don't want to accidentally reread this one again).

Labels: 50 Book Challenge 2007, books

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