Order of the phoenix was an unmitigated disaster. This book is much much better than that. However it’s not as well thought out or written as the first four I believe. The whole half blood prince concept was very silly, Especially as it had such close parallels to Tom Riddle’s diary of chamber of secrets and yet harry insisted that the ’’prince’’ was good while thoroughly detesting Snape who was in real life the so called prince. Secondly Dumbledore who has been praised so much in the previous books is shown up to be a gullible fool... that’s a bitter pill to swallow.
Finally there seems to be an adolescent interest in ’’necking’’ smooching’’ or plainly kissing in the corridors. The whole treatment of this subject is done in a very childish fashion so perhaps it is as if it were from Harry’s Point of view ?
Still it drags the novel down to a young teens book, whereas the previous books were for all ages.
All in all if you are a fan you should read this , but I would suggest waiting till the price comes down to something more reasonable.