Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Ok, first of all, the entire Harry Potter series is thrilling and exciting with you at the edge of your seat at every page turn. But this book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (#6) is crucial to the series because of the information it contains. In this book, Harry finds a tattered potions book that has written on the inside cover, 'Property of the Half-Blood Prince.' On each page of this potions book, there are markings and corrections to make the potions on the pages even better. Because Harry has access to this book, he becomes the best student in the class, so he decides that HE needs to find out who the Half-Blood Prince is.

Along with Harry's endeavors to find out who this "Prince" is, this book features Voldemort, who has regained power, and is threatening both worlds, Muggle (non-magical folk) and Wizard. Harry is given the task of gaining information about Voldemort's condition and source of power from the new potions teacher, Horace Slughorn, on behalf of Dumbledore. Dumbledore gives Harry a memory from Slughorn in the Pensieve (an object used for re-visiting memories), but says that the memory has been "tampered" with. Harry tries to get what information he can out of Slughorn, but it's not easy. Apparently, Slughorn feels ashamed of what he did- and this thing he did involves helping Voldemort. In the memory of Slughorn, it shows him and Voldemort, or Tom Riddle, in his classroom. Tom was always close to Slughorn, and approached him with an odd question about dark magic. It had to do with splitting up your soul and concealing different pieces of your soul in an inanimate object, know as a Horcrux. Possessing such a thing makes you almost invincible, because pieces of your soul still survive, so you can't just kill someone off- pieces of them are everywhere. Harry and his friends, Ron and Hermione, must find all the Horcruxes and destroy them all before it's too late.

I really enjoyed this book because first off, I LOVE the Harry Potter books because they are very well-written so you want to keep reading, and eventually, you get sucked into them. While reading this, I felt like I was actually walking the halls of Hogwarts, tromping through the Forbidden Forest, and hanging out in Hagrid's hut. It is amazing how well J.K. Rowling put every detail and idea into this book. If you like Harry Potter, action, and even a little romance, this is the book for you. Trust me, give it a try, you won't regret it!