This book really made me want to punch 15 year old Harry Potter right in his ‘Chosen One’ face.

The book starts up the summer after sweet old Voldemort killed Cedric Diggory, Harry’s opponent and sort of ally in Goblet of Fire. Harry is stuck at the Dursly’s and has not heard from anyone from the wizarding world in weeks. He is angry and scared and all around has no idea how to deal with his feelings and even starts hating his friends. He then has to defend himself and his horrid cousin from dementors alone and is threatened with expulsion which only makes his anger worse. All of these things plus Dumbledore ignoring him and the addition of Umbrigde, literal satan in a pink blazer, to the Hogwarts staff just makes him even more angsty and stubborn.

At 17, I am reading the Harry Potter series which I feel makes the experience entirely different. If I had read them when I was nine like everyone else, I would have thought Order of the Phoenix Harry was cool, and right to be angry at everyone and everything, all the freaking time. Now when I read them I have a completely different opinion. Maybe it is because I am currently older than Harry is in the books and see most 15 year-olds as annoying, but I can not help but hate him. I feel J.K. Rowling wrote him perfectly. He acts in the books as most angry teenage boys are, self righteous, entitled, obsessed with a girl (Cho Chang) who he hardly knew. Rowling makes him whiny when he doesn’t get his way, like when Dumbledore would not talk to him. It seemed all he does was complain, and I think it is interesting how she almost makes you hate the main character when usually authors try to do the opposite. It was still quite annoying though, but not as annoying as how long some of the chapters seemed to drag on.

Out of the seven books, I have to say Order of the Phoenix is the worst, but it is still pretty good. B-.