Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J. K. Rowling, 2006

This is what I wrote just after finishing HP6:

I love the excitement and anticipation of a new Harry Potter book; I've gone to Barnes & Noble just for the midnight thrill (even though I buy my book through the library) for the last 3 volumes. Cracking a new one is like seeing old friends again. I sank into this one with pleasurable anticipation, which was mostly rewarded...but not entirely. As I've already seen some reviewers saying, Book 6 is so busy setting up for the finale that it's weak on its own. One of Rowling's strengths is normally the richness of the tapestry's details; the minor characters, the specifics of spells the students are studying, the new creatures and methods...

That's all I wrote back then, but I was basically going to say I found #6 too busy with narrative and not as enjoyable as the previous 5. Well, I've re-read it twice since it came out, and I think I was projecting my own headlong rush to gobble it down; it really holds up very well. I don't think I wrote any notes on Deathly Hallows, but I loved it. What a satisfying end to the series. I'll re-read them all in a year or two (unless I get sick enough to stay home for more than a day; the last time that happened, years ago, the pleasurable part was doing nothing but read Harry Potter for an extended period.)