Chamber of Secrets is brilliant.

This is my least favorite of the series. Because, basically this book has a lot of pettiness, the worlds most irritating character (LOCKHART), and giant spiders, and yet it is so important to the series because it sets everything up so well and indicates just how much JK had planned for her series even this early on. So while there are a lot of qualities that I dislike and which sort of distract the reader from all the important things, there are still a lot of important things that happen!! It’s really well done because it shows that at this point in Harry’s story he is still young and focused on the more trivial things (including the petty, the irritating, and the scary spiders ok). I just…this is brilliant.

This isn’t my first, second, third or even fourth time rereading this so I’m sorry to say that I can’t really write a proper review. It becomes difficult to talk about how you feel about a book/how a book makes you feel when you have so much history with them. So instead I am just going to mention some of the things that I really appreciated THIS time around!!!
- I need to acknowledge that every single time I read this book I find Dobby to be incredibly annoying when he is first introduced. Obviously by the end I am singing a different song (my lil precious baby) but I just love that his character is so well done that even though I understand his struggle and the reasons for him acting the way that he does, that it doesn’t change my first initial reaction to him.
- I love Collin Creevy.
- I really appreciated the car in this book more this time than I ever have before.
-

Spoiler

I love how we start to see similarities in Harry & Voldemort in this book!!! From their back stories, to their time at school it is just SO WELL DONE IMO. Really sets the stage for a lot of things that are revealed later on in the story.

-

Spoiler

I love how Harry mentions that he is so drawn to the diary because this ends up being incredibly relevant in the later books when dealing with the other horcruxes. This really shows how well thought out the series was!

-

Spoiler

When Tom Riddle explains how he takes control over Ginny by winning her over and gaining her trust is really important in helping to show the power that he had over people, especially when he was at his peak!!

-

Spoiler

I love the tension over believing Harry is the heir of slytherin in this book because it becomes so ironic later on when readers discover everything that is revealed in Deathly Hallows

So yeah everything, including every single annoying thing, is so important to the story even if readers don’t realize until later on. This is amazing. I love it, even when I hate it, I love it.