• Author: J.K Rowling
• Series: Harry Potter #4
• Genre: Fantasy
• No. of pages: 636
• Dates read: 01.06.19 – 23.06.19
• Rating: 5 stars (Favourite)
• Challenge: 2019 sequels and ONTD Challenge June Theme, “A book about friendship or where friendship is the main theme.”

I love the Harry Potter series! It is one of my favourite series of all time. I love the movies, the theme parks, everything. I listen to all the podcasts about it and last year I decided I was going to re-read my favourite series as I couldn’t remember much of Order of the Phoenix, Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows, so I wanted to remind myself.

When I knew I was going to re-read this book I decided I wanted to approach the re-read with a different focus in mind. I had recently been listening to a podcast called Harry Potter and the Sacred Text. This podcast would take a deep dive into each chapter of the books and focus on a specific theme. They would analyse the chapter and have in-depth and insightful discussions on the events in that chapter. I binged this podcast and I thought to myself. I would love to adopt this idea of reading each chapter with a theme in mind, I would like to see if it shaped my way of thinking.

I also decided to annotate favorutie quotes and passages I found in the book. So I grabbed two highlighters, a pen and a ruler and got to work!

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My takeaway from this experience was, that while I enjoyed looking for where the theme was in each book this needs to be a practice that you do over a long period of time. You can’t condense this into a short period of time. I tried to fit Goblet of Fire into one month and it was tricky at times as I felt I was putting a timetable in place to make sure I got it done. It felt more like homework than the joy of reading. That’s on me.

Some chapters were easier than others to annotate and some themes were easier to find corresponding quotes or passages. I did find though that I didn’t enjoy the book as much as I could of if I was just highlighting quote that I like and just reading the books as normal. But it was a vital practice for me to take a longer and more intricate look at the story. I felt that I learned more about the motivations of characters; I learned the catalyst for poignant moments in the novel that I may not have picked up on if I had just read it normally and I appreciated Rowling’s plot a lot more than I initially did as I was looking at it through a magnifying glass.

That being said, I will not be adopting this practice for Order of the Phoenix for two reasons.

1. The book is incredibly long with some mundane chapters so I don’t want to be spending two months annotating, getting bored of the practice and then ruining my re-read experience. Also, making me want to step from the practice all together for future novels.
2. I feel like I grasped the meaning of the practice and I am ready to move on and try something new.

I may come back and annotate the book for the theme’s in a future re-read but for now I will take a step back.

This review was more focused on my experience annotating a novel more so than the content of the book. The book was just as extravagant, heart-breaking and fun as I had thought so when I previously read it about 5 years ago. One thing that did change for this re-read was that I got very emotional over Cedric’s death and the following scenes after that. I feel like this was because I knew what was going to follow Harry after this moment and it broke my heart. Cedric’s death is such a cataclysmic moment for the series as a whole and it really got me.

I hope to read Order of Phoenix later on this year but I have some many books on my physical tbr we shall see what happens.