The Half-Blood Prince
I just finished reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince this morning. The early information on this was about how much darker this book would be than the last. I didn’t find that to be the case. Order of the Phoenix was a much more sinister book - evil was within the Ministry and Hogwarts itself. The Order was active in pursuing the Death-Eaters, and Harry’s leadership came into bloom with his Dark Arts study group, the DA. Prince on the other hand, is much more tame by comparison, and seems more like of a setup piece to the final book. Dumbledore spends the book helping Harry learn more information about Voldemort in order to better defeat him. Much about Voldemort’s past is better explained, which is why it seems more like a setup book. By concentrating so much on Voldemort’s past, the present was is almost forgotten. The day-to-day goings-on at Hogwarts (classes, Quidditch, etc.) are still there, but the war takes a back seat to information gathering. A death was promised, and is exactly who is expected (though who killed him was a tad surprising). In fact, it seems like the character in question is also expecting it. It begs the question whether or not things are really as they seem.
So, now the questions about the final book start. Harry will almost certainly defeat Voldemort, but at what further cost? Will the treachery in this book have been genuine, or all part of Dumbledore’s grand plan?
