HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE, BY J. K. ROWLING

Like I wasn’t going to pick up the latest ticket to one of my favorite places of all time. 300 pages in and there’s no stopping me. Titters and guffaws issue from my grinning maw at semi-regular intervals, in crowded coffee shops or alone in my empty apartment. More details on steamy teen romance and my thoroughly scuttled pretensions toward adulthood on completion!

Ok, that was traumatic. I was definitely not expecting Dumbledore to kick it so soon, and I was certainly not expecting Snape as the murderer. I actually don’t feel quite comfortable with the Snape situation. Snape defied expectations, which Rowling slathered on rather heavily, by seeming to have some unseen kernel of goodness beneath all his malice, and in doing so shamed us for judging too hastily, for not delving into histories and motives and grappling with the hard truths of forgiveness and redemption. But now it seems we were wrong, that our forgiveness was misplaced, and I don’t like it. Now the characters divide along more absolute lines, there are fewer gray areas, which might be perfectly satisfying for Republicans and Anakin Skywalker, but sort of rings hollow for me. Reading too much into it, of course. I’m just personally distressed by fictional escapsim withdrawl.

Also, I’m willing to bet R.A.B is Regulus Black, Sirius’s brother. You heard it here first. And teen romance rocks. Go you horny teens, go!