(2021 rating: 4 / 5): On the other hand...now that I've read the rest of the series, I like Fred and George more. Though James, Sirius, and the others were immature and even mean during school, it bothered me less than before. And once again, listening to the audiobook this time let me ignore the dashes and ellipses that bothered me during my first reading. Like with the first book in the series, I liked the entire experience a little more this time.

(2019 rating: 3.5 / 5):
It actually took me some time after finishing this book to decide how I felt about it. I realized that this was because it was not terribly exciting or cohesive throughout. I did find myself wanting to push to finish it, but that was as much because I wanted to find out if some of my theories were correct or not. Certain things that were going on seemed really obvious to me, and I wanted to know how they panned out.

I was not surprised to find out that Sirius Black was not evil like he was made out to be. I was, however, both surprised and disappointed to find out that Sirius Black, Harry's dad, and a couple of other guys were the Fred & George Weasley of their time. I had not pictured Harry's dad that way, and while I'm sure it's not uncommon for "hooligans" to grow up and be respectable adults, it was strange to think of Harry's dad as a bully, and to think of Snape as a victim.

Hermione's arc was disappointing, as she was barely in this book except to anger Ron and then disappear for a while. And the reveal at the end about how she was going to so many classes at the same time was a bit unrealistic. Not because it's time travel, but because I have a difficult time believing they'd let her time travel for school. And then later, there are some inconsistencies with the time travel that bugged me.

Harry himself was hit-or-miss for me. I know he'd done some things in the previous books that he wasn't supposed to be doing, but when he snuck out to go to Hogsmeade in this book, it felt more outright defiant to me. I did enjoy the Quidditch scenes though, and laughed out loud at McGonagall's reactions in the final match.

By some point in the 2nd half of the book, I realized how irritated all of the dashes in the book were making me, and to a lesser degree, ellipses. They were just so peppered throughout, for interrupted speech, faltering speech, and just...well, anything they're normally used for. I use both of these punctuation types myself, and normally, it's pretty innocuous. So for me to have noticed it so much, there must have been quite a lot of it.

Overall, I didn't dislike the book, but didn't enjoy it as much as I did the previous one. Still, I'm looking forward to seeing where the series goes from here. ( )

I mean, you can't stop after just one.....

As good as I remembered. I love reading all of the scenes that I had forgotten about. ( )

Maybe my least favorite of the series? Not that it suffers all that much for that since I just love the whole series as one wonderful whole. ( )

Buenísimo desarrollo, excelentes personajes! Mucho mas oscura y viajes en el tiempo, espectacular! ( )