I finished reading it on Friday, and I liked it, but I was a little disappointed. Formulaic Empire-Strikes-Back plot to tee up book seven: the plot is winding up, and it shows. J.K. is also quite clearly playing to the movies, which is not necessarily a bad thing: I can see several puerile jokes making it verbatim into the film scripts.
I guessed who the Half-Blood Prince was (hmm, old school book, very good at potions, studies dark arts, who on earth might that be?). I also knew immediately what sectumsempra would do. I mean honestly, why don’t they teach Latin at Hogwarts?
It’s also a shame that Snape is now such a one-dimensional character: I thought he was previously one of the most interesting characters. I would have liked to see more conflict in him.
He's not really evil. He's just what Dumbledore said he was, and everything is going according to plan.
(http://livejournal.com/users/_skye_)
I'm sure a lot of fans would like that to be true, but that's just as bad. Either way, we didn't see any conflict in him, and I think it's more interesting if Dumbledore was wrong about him. But I suppose the series is really for children.
(http://livejournal.com/users/elbeno)