Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Book 5 Audio CD)

Rating:
Summary: The best book of our time!
Review: This is a great book with adventure in every corner! It's a marvelous sequel to the four books that came before it, and it keeps you waiting for the sixth. This story will keep you reading for hours. With new characters and some of our favorites old ones, Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix will never get boring! It is sure to win in the race for the best book in the world!

Rating:
Summary: Best Book yet
Review: The book is the best I've read so far but then, I don't know why J.K. made Harry so bad tempered, he was a lot better on the last four books. It's a bummer about Sirius though, I really hated when she did that, I wonder what the next's books titles though there's a rumor that the next one is The Mudblood's Revolt,and the last is The Cetaur's Quest. But if ever J.K. read my review, I would like to ask you about this : In the3rd book, Prisoner of Azkaban, didn't Harry and Hermione return back trough time? how come Lupin didn't see them I mean he was really concentrating on the Marauder's map, He would have seen, why didn't he see. And then on the Fifth Book why kill Sirius? Wish you declare on the next book that Sirius is cleared though, it would be an insult to his memory not cleared on a crime he didn't commit.And what about Snape's memory being chased, is that it or maybe something like it and he was crying, what was that all about? Did Snape ever forgave Sirius? And what happened in his worse memory, was he you know... Please, please, please answer my questions, e-mail me at [e-mail].

Rating:
Summary: Yawn attack on a one way street
Review: Seriously How can anyone stand this stupid book or any of them after the first. Once the first came out it was clear that Harry Potter was really popular and wouldn't stop for a while so a second book was written assuming the popularity of Harry Potter they would keep on writting books and having it turn out happy-ended. (Yawns again) it's the same plot over and over: Oh no! Something bad is happening at hog-warts. Zap, Zap, oops, aha, uh-oh, yeah we win! Same sequence over and over fits in halloween catagory and because of it's popularity people will keep giving the publishers money when the plot's all the same and the movies are just a good way to get away with being lazy.

Rating:
Summary: Middle ground
Review: This book has generated quite a variety of opinions, to be sure. Maybe isolating the main characteristics of this book could help in judging it more impartially.
The book is quite long, yes, but the fourth was not a short tale, so the length alone is not to be taken as a sign of bad quality. However, since some parts could be shorter, maybe an abridged version is due. The general plot agrees with the previous installments: Voldemort is more cautious (as past events taught him to be) and there is logic in his background-wrongdoings. A lot of readers dislike how much of the book is occupied by the Umbridge sub-plot and truth to tell so am I (after all, her time as High Inquisitor of Hogwarts doesn't seem to leave vital consequences).
The characters... well, this is a sour topic for many readers. A lot of characters (Ron, Hagrid, Hermione, etc.) seem to be true to their "own-selves", as portrayed in previous books. J. K. obviously took some hints from the movies ("Harry and Ron have grown a lot") and from some prior criticisms (while Dudley is still a most unpleasant cousin, he is no longer a pig-like boy). The Weasley twins are just terrific. Some of the new characters were a bit overdone (being Umbridge the main example), but most seemed to be acceptable additions (my personal favorite is Grawp). Sirius seemed reckless (not really unexpected given his situation) but he seemed very oblivious regarding Harry's safety, an improbable behavior at best.
As it happens in the comic world, readers usually want some extent of continuity and they are not very eager to accept gross changes; were Harry just more irritable, his portray would have been more accepted, but he displayed some traits that seem straight unlikely. He used to be quite more sympathetic and now we see how insensible he could be when judging Cho (not to mention Snape). Harry used to have a lot of faith in Dumbledore and now he ascribes petty motivations for his behavior; this happens even if: 1) Harry is fully aware of the mental contact he shares with Voldemort (a too obvious explanation for Dumbledore's detachment), b) Dumbledore stood up for him at the trial, c) Regarding the secret meetings at Hogwarts, Dumbledore freed Harry from punishment by having the guiltiness attributed to himself. Adolescence is not enough to explain these changes: After all, just a year ago, he was rather different. His "powerful sense of rebellion" is just too powerful.
All in all, the book is good, but it is by no means the best in the series so far.

Rating:
Summary: More of a drawn out fanfic than a proper novel
Review: Okay, what the hell is up with Hermione turning up for no reason at Headquaters and cutting her ski trip short?... Okay, if it was done in a fanfiction for convinience (to get all the characters together) that would be alright, but you can't just do something like that in a book. /Especially/ when you give such a lame explanation; ¨Oh, well, skiing is really not my thing¨.
I'm hoping that JK is not a bad writer afterall and that Hermy was actually with Krum and she left after an arguement had occured... Now *that* at least is interesting...*sigh* Also, what is up with Bella? Now an evil character whom I can't even hate (apart from on principle) is very a badly constructed character, indeed.
Using a prophecy?JK, that's just plain cheap...it's the easy option. I am very much distressed, my friends, if JK is starting to rely on prophecies to hold her plot together...then we may very well end up with a Book 7 that ends with these two sentences: ¨Harry woke up to the sound of Aunt Petunia banging on his cupboard door. Grumbling Harry got out of bed, his strange dream still vivid in his mind's eye, and rubbed his throbbing scar ¨ *Argh! Terrible*
The book had so many plot holes... Couldn't Mr. Malfoy just have used gloves handling the prophecy...I mean he does say ¨...turn around slowly and hand it over¨ (or something along those lines) what? is he going to put it in a sack or something...Why was Ron cured so easily by Dumblebore when Voldie couldn't manage it? I'm sure he and Albus are equally powerful, and for that matter why couldn't St. Mungo's do anything about Sturgis either? Unless I am much mistaken, either JK is being sloppy or Dumbledore is in possesion of The green flame torch (a device with healing powers) aka *The Weapon*
Another thing; why couldn't Voldie turn up at the MoM when all those Death Eaters could, hello! Do they have a special alarm that goes off when he enters the building or something (¨Voldermort has just entered the building¨^_^). He used to be such an interesting character, and now he has been deflated/steamrolled into your typical villain..¨you have irked me far to often¨ not exactly fear inspiring is it? In fact I burst out laughing and I'm sure that wasn't JK's intended effect.
Prose: JK's writing used to have such clout... and now it's all become so watered down (by sentences that could be reduced by 50% and still retain their meaning)that the words lose their power completely.
Oh, and I know that teenagers, I being one of them, do not get like *that*... Harry needs anger management classes (or JK a writing tutorial^_^). Also, I can't believe Harry, Ron and Hermy are so stupid as to need Sirius explain to them that the world is not divided into good people and Death Eaters...Well, JK good thing you at least understand that (if not teenagers), but when are you going to show some Slytherins that aren't brainless, ugly, malicious twits?
O.o, I better end this thing- it's starting to reach the length of an essay!
Conclusion: although not perfect, this book is a must have for Potter manai-erm, *fans* because of the many clues in it- try rearranging the letters in Drooble's Best Blowing Gum and see if you get any interesting revelations in regard to St Mungo's. Clues abound...
Comments/answer (I've got enough question to keep me occupied- thanks), email me at [e-mail]

Rating:
Summary: great book!!!!
Review: this book, more so than the previous ones in this series, focuses on harry's feelings. You easily become completely engrosed in the book and often find yourself laughing and crying out loud. As a teenager myself i found i could easily relate to Harry's feelings, and often found his reaction to situations very similar to what i would think my own reaction would be. I think this book was the best one in the series thus far.

Rating:
Summary: A Really Good Book to Read
Review: I would really recommend Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix to any Harry Potter fan. Harry is back at Hogwarts for his 5th year, but there is a new teacher that is really mean and makes the school weird. She teaches according to th Ministry of Magic, which is different from the way the other students were previously taught. The way that J.K. Rowling writes this almost 900-page bookis very entertaining and interesting to read.She is really desccreiptive in her writing, but the book has so many pages. It also has a really sad ending. I can't wait for the next Harry Potter book to come out after reading this one.

Rating:
Summary: When does it get exciting?
Review: Okay, nearly half done with this thing and still waiting for something interesting to happen.

I read long books all the time and haven't utterly stopped in the middle of one in a long while. Well, guess what may happen right quick!

Ron Weasley a prefect AND on the Quidditch team! I know this is fantasy and all but give me a break. Was there ever a more clumsy and less charismatic character?

Harry is a non-stop grump and pain to read about. I expect him to be more clever and rise above all the bad press, not constantly bicker with his friends and schoolmates...and teachers. What a terrible example in behavior.

I'm not sure what other books the 4-5 star reviewers are reading, but they must be really, utterly total crap. This installment of Harry Potter is not the worst fantasy book I've read but fails at even being middling.

Rating:
Summary: This is a five as compared with the others in the series...
Review: Folks, you know the story. Read this book to see Rowling take a fairly good character, Harry Potter, and make him more rounded and absolutely more realistic. Harry is having a bad streak because he is a teenager who is not getting a whole lot of respect. The fight against Voldemort is the central plot of this story, rather than a rough school year at Hogwarts. The stakes are raised very well by Rowling. Obviously Rowling did not want to cave to those hurrying her along and it paid off in this book. It is richer and deeper than the others. The only thing missing was the nice whimsy and humor from the previous four. Perhaps that would have detracted, but I think it might have lent the serious parts more impact. This is a good book to read.

Rating:
Summary: Undramatic and inconsistant
Review: First of all I'll simply say that this book is far, far, far too long. There is definitely not a lot of plot to sustain the 700+ pages and it is in need of some serious trimming down. There are many chapters that are just plain useless, sub-plots that are uninteresting and further no particular cause and a distinct lack of anything really dramatic.

If all the usual stuff was left out and the book focused only on Lord Voldemort's return then it would have been entertaining to read. But with such a plot why did JK Rowling feel the need to chuck in Quidditch matches (these are seriously getting boring, how many variations of Harry catching the snitch do we need?), Harry's boring problems with a girl he inexplicably likes, uninteresting points about homework and revision, a meaningless subplot involving Hagrid's brother, a pointless subplot involving Firenze the Centaur becoming a teacher and Hermione's involvement with SPEW and all her knitting.

If all this boring stuff was left out then we would have been left with a pretty fast-paced book. I'm sad to say tho, this one really lets the whole series down.

There are some new touches that are particularly effective tho. A new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, called Professor Umbridge, is just about the most evil, twisted and horrible woman ever. Rowling's description of her perfectly describes absolute wickedness and malice. And it's also good to see Neville Longbottom get a chance to act the hero for once. He's always been a character I like.

I hope the next book isn't as overlong and tedious as this. OOTP was a MAJOR let-down. I can only seriously recommend it to absolute HARDCORE fans. I mean if the first book made a 153 minute film and the second made a 160 minute film then OOTP would be a film lasting almost 9 HOURS!!!