Rating: 
Summary: best yet
Review: this is seriously the best harry potter in the series yet. i dont get why people complain about the charchters not being realistic. most teens act like that and its more realistic than the first. i dont know how good of a book for an 10 year old this is as to get more of the points and emotions you have to either be 15 or already been 15. 11 and 12 yearolds might not get it as much. i read this book in the first day i got it, starting at 6pm and not stopping until i finsished which was about 13 hrs later. it justs pulls you in. one of the reasons this book is so great is that you feel basically every emotion while reading it. there were places were i cried, places where i got so embaressed, places where i was mad and places where i was happy. you could go from being sad to laughing and vice versa. i really recomend this book. there are only two series of books that i even care about and thats harry potter and the vampire chronicles
Rating: 
Summary: Great book for all!
Review: I have two problems with this book: 1.) Sirius Black's character is just not believable. I understand he is restless and wants to be able to do more and hates being stuck in the house all the time... But would someone who cares for his Godson so much really risk his well being? It seemed like he tried to compromise Harry's safety quite a bit. And I didn't like the end sequence with him (I won't give it away like some others have on here) - It's not that I didn't like WHAT happened to him. I just don't like HOW it happened. It was dull and uneventful - kind of a big disappointment for such a big character. and 2.) JK Rowling uses way too many adverbs.Stephen King pointed this out in an article that he wrote about the book - and he is right. Everything is "angrily, exasperatedly, snottily, sadly, etc." It takes away from the quality of writing and from the great story teller that JK Rowling really is.
Those 2 reasons are why I gave this book only 4 stars instead of 5. Besides of those two pet peeves listed above, this book is absolutely fantastic. I fell in love with the Harry Potter books years ago and I was terrified that they were going to go downhill more and more with each book, but to my astonishment, they haven't! each book is just as good as the last, if not better!
In this book Harry is getting older, and puberty is really starting to show! He's really starting to get quite a little temper on him! If you read book 4, you know that it ended off with Voldemort coming back to "life" and almost killing Harry. Since Harry was the only one (besides the deatheathers) who saw this, he comes back and tells everyone. But, not everyone believes him. The ministry of magic doesn't believe him and the newspapers spend all summer making Harry out to be the big joke of the wizarding world. But, Dumbledore and the others (P. McGonagall, the Weasleys) believe that Voldemort is back and they form The Order Of The Pheonix - A group designed to investigate and get rid of Voldemort and his followers.
The book is great. I finished it in 4 days. Couldn't put it down. Highly recommended for all - young and old!
Rating:
Summary: The best one yet!
Review: I made sure I was up at the crack of dawn so I could get this book. I've been waiting for this book to come out for three years and it was wellll worth the wait! These books only get better and better each one I've read. These are for 'kids' of all ages.
Rating:
Summary: Rowling brings sanity where the media doesn't dare go
Review: Maybe it was the fault of my 12th grade economics and English teachers, but I can't read a book now without looking at the motives authors have when they write what they write.What I see in Harry Potter #5 is a very risky and very sucessful attempt to shed light on recent world events. The media today presents a very one-sided view of politics: "The West is good, Islam is evil, God bless our freedom." Meanwhile, the government continues to tighten its stranglehold on ordinary citizens, infringing on privacy and civil rights. Rowling takes this political trend, gathers all elements of it up, and funnels it into Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Ho, ho, Voldemort is not the big bad government. Those shoes are filled by the Ministry of Magic, embodied by none other than our dear Professor Umbridge, who, for the sake of the MOM's interests, squeezes the life out of Hogwarts. The result? Terrorism, in the form of Fred and George Weasley. Who would have guessed? We love the twins all the more because they dare to take a stand. We want to hug McGonagall because she dares to stand up to Umbridge. Of course, there is a BIG, BIG difference between real-life terrorism and the form that Fred and George carry out, but this book is a microcosm that illustrates the dangerous results that occur when a government acts shamelessly the way many do. By virtue of her popularity, Rowling has managed to get this important message across to so many more people than the Quibbler can reach. Some people accuse this book of being dark and disappointing, and indeed it was a solemn read, but I respect JKR all the more because she had the courage to take the unique opportunity she has to reach so many people--fans worldwide--with her message.
Rating: 
Summary: Unrealistic Characters, predictable plot, overall ok
Review: This book is certainly different than the rest of the books in the series. While I thought it was ok, it still had some problems. First of all, Sirius's death was pretty lame. He fell through portal type thing because he taunted his cousin, and then he's gone. During the whole book, Sirius acted quite stupid anyways, because he wanted Harry with him all the time which seemed very spoiled and selfish, and is totally contrary to the man we met in The Prisioner of Azkaban. It was actually a relief for him to die, because he whined and complained just about as much as Harry. That was another thing which bothered me. I mean, it's ok for a teen to get stressed out but it's not realistic at all to yell at your friends everytime they try to talk to you. And I thought that the room at the end of the corridor with the prophecy was stupid too. We figured from the beginning that Harry was eventually going to have to fight Voldemort one last time and someone would die; we didn't need almost 100 pages to explain it to us again. Umbridge also bothered me, because it just doesn't seem like a teacher would go around cutting peoples hands open and not get in trouble at all. The basic plot is ok, but it would be better if the characters were more realistic and if the plot was less predictable. I still liked it, but I'm not as anxious for the 6th one to come out, and when it does I hope it is better. The series definitely won't be a classic, I can tell you that.
Rating:
Summary: Excitement and suspence wins once more
Review: As Harry Potter starts his fifth year at Hogwarts School, he is haunted by terrible nightmares that bring panic and frustration to him. And, these nightmares are not the normal nightmares any other fifteen year-old boy would have. He experiences them personally. With this challenge, Harry also experiences an evil Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, his O.W.L exams, and also the lurking threat of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.
J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter book series, also wrote, Quidditch Through The
Ages, Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them. She has earned the Hugo Award, the Bram Stoker Award, the Whitbread Award for Best Children's Book, a special commendation for the Anne Spencer Lindbergh Prize, and a special certificate for being a three-year winner of the Smarties Prize, as well as many other honors. Rowling has also been named an Officer of the British Empire. She presently lives in in Scotland with her husband and two children. (http://www.scholastic.com/harrypotter/author)
J.K. Rowling's use of imagination and skill of writing combine to make the Harry Potter series a very popular book for people of all ages. This story relates to many despite the fact it of its extremely fictional plot. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix demonstrates Harry coming to age by allowing him to face many of his problems more independently. Harry must yet again confront death and figure out many answers about life on his own. Rowling, unlike her other books, shows Harry as a more experienced adolescent by allowing him to face challenges on his own. She shows Harry's experience through the test of death that he encounters. He must show bravery and courage allowing this book to be appropriate for all audiences. Rowling, from the start, forces the reader to become so attached to the book, that they must continue reading it. Her skill of doing so captures the audience in suspense and excitement.
This book opens up the imagination of the reading through its enthralling plot. It recommended for all who enjoy a mixture of excitement, horror, as well as a fun, entertaining plot. J.K. Rowling has definitely made another masterpiece that is just and even more enjoyable than the others.
Rating:
Summary: Just When You Thought It Couldn't Get Any Better....
Review: ....Rowling shows her extraordinary writing skills and proves you wrong again. The fifth and latest novel, as of now at least, in the Harry Potter series has taken my imagination, hopes fears, loves and thoughts of these very lifelike, very attachable characters, and once again, these feelings have been turned on their collective heads, as new characters are introduced, old characters are built up even more believably, and new, far more dangerous situations are brought to bear, or to break, depending on which character you think of. It all starts with a dream, Harry walking down a darkly elongated hallway, peering through preternatural shadow, wondering why he feels beckoned onward, against his wishes, against his fears, brought, drawn, inexoribly towards his destiny, his curiosity, both of which lie behind a tall black door at halls' end. From there, things become interesting. Old characters, Harry, Hermione, Ron, Mr.& Mrs. Weasly, Ginny, George and Fred, Neville, Nearly Headless Nick, Fawkes, Peeves, Filtch, old hats at the Ministry Of Magic, Snape, Mogannigall, Sprout, Pomfrey, Dumbledoor, Lupin & Sirius, Hagrid, Malfoy, Crabb, Goyle, Angelina, Katie, varius students who we've all come to know and love,all back to become more fleshed out, more meaningful, alongsode newer, more mysterious characters, Tonks, Shacklebolt, The Death Eaters, Umbridge, Luna, all, one and all, parts of a much larger, more meaningful whole. So much more is touched upon in this part of the tale, indeed, it needed every page to tell the story in its most pure, not to mention most fun, form. There are even more adult themes here tha ever before, and while it may seem that there is no definite cause for all the trouble and bedlam that graces these pages, well, i won't say anything else for fear of spoiling the magic that rests within these pages. But i will say this...there is discovery, death, wonder, past, present and future, revelation, anger, hatred, happiness, all to be found within these pages, all leading up to a prophecy...dark and sinsiter and horrible it is.....read it for yourself...i think you'll understand me when i say, This One's For Keeps. Rowling is a bloody genius.
Hawksmoor...From The Bleed
Rating:
Summary: The Best Potter Yet
Review: "The Order of the Phoenix" is the best and most "adult" Harry Potter book yet. At 870 pages, with the now-teenage characters drinking coffee and sometimes looking for something stronger, dating, falling into sullen moods, and suffering emotional as well as physical pain, this is clearly a book aimed at an older audience than "The Sorcerer's Stone." The length and timing of the books seems to be a deliberate part of a plan for young people to grow with them. By the time a ten year old is finished with "Sorcerer's Stone," he or she could be eleven and ready for "Chamber of Secrets." "Phoenix" is not only long enough to scare away an inappropriately young audience (it is probably too scary for young children), but it is dark and serious enough to engage teenagers...and older audiences (like me!). The book is also more internally consistent than its predecessors, and the characters' motives are more accessible to adults. For instance, the younger Potter seemed unaccountably distrustful of adults until I came to realize that children basically walk through life afraid of getting caught. Almost anything a young child may have the urge to do is the type of thing adults put limits on. So young Harry would not go to his elders when such a course seemed, from my adult perspective, to be the logical thing to do. Harry must remain self-reliant, otherwise he wouldn't be at the center of the stories. In Phoenix, he is either physically separated from some allied adults, or is resentful towards others. Its not so much that he's distrustful as he is buffeted between forces that are affecting them too. The hideous Dolores Umbridge, subjects other adults to the same type of police-state that the younger Harry must have felt like he was living in whenever he entered Professor Snape's classroom from the start. Phoneix is the second book in which a significant character dies, which makes up for the overly happy endings of the first two books and enhances a genuine sense of suspense and foreboding as the book moves along. And the book certainly does move along. No long, boring descriptions of Quiddich, no tedious Winter Ball. Just about every page moves the plot along. I spent the summer reading the Potter books, and this was a great one to end my run with. I suppose it may be a few summers yet before the sixth book comes out. "Phoneix" leaves me eagerly anticipating that date.
Rating:
Summary: Hoorah for Neville, Fred and George!
Review: In each of the preceding Harry Potter novels, JKR introduced us to new characters and plotlines. In Order of the Phoenix, few of the major characters are new [with the notable exception of the vile, pink-sweater-wearing-headmistress-wannabe Delores Umbridge] and she explores more deeply some of the old themes and characters. To my delight, some of the familiar characters emerge as unlikely heroes. My heart soared as the defiant Fred and George Weasley flew away on their brooms to realize entrepreneurial success. And Neville fighting Lord Voldemort alongside Harry -- who knew? Hermione, of course, has always been my favorite. Her quickly devised plan to introduce Umbridge to the Centaurs was brilliant!! Many of themes in this novel left me feeling unsatisfied -- Harry's relationship with Cho Chang, being an example. And really, he should appreciate by now that Snape is not his enemy. In fact, Harry was not very likeable in this installment. Self-absorbed, unnecessarily defiant, moody. A byproduct of the teenage years, I suppose. Still, JKR has achieved another imaginative, compelling story that I recommend to anyone who loves the basic literary device of good triumphing over evil.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing book, couldn't put it down!!
Review: This book was excellent. J.K Rowling had me reading days on end. She used such words that made you feel like you were in the book fighting Voldemort yourself. Great points in the book that solve old questions such as:
What happened to Nevilles parents?
The truth about Harrys parents.
Voldemort.(self explanitory)
And other things.
Rowling goes intop detail in this one and focuses more on the wizarding government then what happens at the school making this read even better. Two thumbs up. GREAT READ!
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