There are so many emotions and thoughts racing around in my head after reading Order of the Phoenix that I'm not sure I will be able to condense them into a document properly. I don't even know where to start, there are so many things I want to address...

I'll start off with a short summary... this book was aggravating, terribly terribly aggravating, and I highly suggest that you do not read it. It is certainly not worth the emotional turmoil and general feeling of rage you will probably share after finishing Phoenix.

A friend of mine who has not read the book yet said she has heard it described as a 'bad fanfic'. Although this description is not totally accurate, it does not seem too far from the truth. Bad the book certainly is - although it isn't poorly written or stupid, it is terrible for reasons I will discuss later. Fanfic also seems a semi-adequate description... although it is much too long and involved to be fan-written fiction, it does not always read like it was written by the same author as the previous installments. Phoenix is much darker and less childish; also, it is basically about Harry's emotional battle going through puberty, although this is never directly brought up. In fact, the descriptions of the emotions of a teenage boy going through puberty do seem too accurate to have been written by a middle-aged woman...

This really is nothing more than the story of Harry's struggle through the beginning of adolescence. Somehow Rowling managed to spend 870 pages describing Harry's anger and temper and not much else (although he does seem to have a remote interest with girls). Harry goes through one problem after another, yelling, blowing his top, and behaving rudely at every turn.

This is not to say that the author does not do a good job of connecting the reader with Harry; on the contrary, I felt quite emotionally connected with him throughout the first 700 pages. However, the only emotion Harry seems to have is anger, and rightly so from his (and consequently my) point of view. The first 700 pages are just shit that happens to Harry. That's what causes the emotional connection with him, really... so much shit happens to the poor bastard you can't help feeling sorry for him, and enraged at the way his life is going. Everything is going wrong; however, to maintain the pubescent feeling, everything literally is going wrong, as opposed to stupid things that are blown out of proportion by the character's feeling that life is unfair. If Harry only experienced the typical things that cause a teen in puberty to feel that everthing is going wrong, older and wiser readers would laugh at Harry and feel no connection with him. Instead, Rowling has caused everything that possibly can go wrong to do so, leaving the reader angered and frusterated alongside Harry.

Rowling really went out of her way to maintain this pubescent feeling; almost nothing of significance happens within the first 700 pages. Instead, things just keep going wrong, one after another. Although hints of problems outside Harry's immediate life and surroundings are brought up, the story really focuses on him exclusively, doing no justice to the bigger picture. When the reader should be worried about Voldemort's next move, he is sympathyzing with Harry's large amounts of homework, or trouble with girls.

Harry is, quite naturally, given a thoroughly excessive amount of homework and then stripped of all the time necessary to complete his tasks. This is one of the main sources of aggravation, although the worst by far is Professor Umbridge. She is not even a primary villain of the series, and yet even Voldemort seems like an angel in comparison to her (not helped by the fact that he is barely mentioned). This woman is just pure evil, and I always had a strong desire to walk up to her and shoot her in the face, an emotion I've never had about a fictional character before. She's really one evil, cruel, heartless bitch... there is absolutely no other way to describe her. Rowling overemphasized Umbridge's role and made her seem much more significant than the supposed primary villain of the whole series.

Another source of frustration is Harry's lack of talent with girls. He has a crush on Cho Chang, a girl who seems perfect for him in most respects, and she likes him back as well. By far Harry's relationship with her was the most interesting part of the book, and beyond all else kept me reading. Unfortunately, Cho is barely mentioned, as Harry is young, stupid, and nieve, and never thinks of his crush except when she is in the immediate vicinity. This fault can also be attributed to the author, who simply does not have enough contact or relationship with Cho established. To make matters worse, Harry is a complete idiot and keeps misunderstanding Cho and treating her rudely. He has absolutely no ability to talk to her or care what she is thinking or feeling. This is so aggravating I found myself cursing out loud and punching my pillow after one particularly frustrating page in which Harry (being his typical idiot self) is extremely rude to Cho and they part in anger after an argument. Come on Harry, what are you doing here? This is made even worse by the fact that Cho receives no mention for nearly the last hundred pages and then is only mentioned in one sentence, as Harry realizes he is over her (he has a pity-crush on a freak now, although he doesn't realize it). This was extremely disappointing; obviously I cared more than Harry about his relationship with Cho.

The last 160 pages actually contain action and the passing of events that could be construed as halfway important or meaningful. I tore through these pags hoping to find Harry patching up his relationship with Cho, only to be disappointed at the end. At this point, despite the action picking up and things actually taking place, I no longer felt any emotional connection with Harry. To make matters worse, none of the events in the last 160 pages end up having any significance as they are all resolved too nicely, and you could probably skip from the fourth book to the sixth when that comes out without noticing or missing the lack of Phoenix.

Look, I'm so aggravated with the stupid thing I'm up at 2:30 AM writing a review when I'm tired as hell. Don't read this book, it will just piss you off. It draws you in too much and then drops and disappoints you miserably at the end, leaving you feeling empty and frustrated. And aggravated. I am very aggravated.

I seem to retain a slight sense of logic while brain dead this late at night... all the stuff I just wrote makes sense to me and sounds like my most well written review ever, although I am aware that the truth will reveal itself in the morning after I've slept. Please excuse any typographical errors or anything scary or disturbing and attribute it to my desperate need for sleep. My eyelids are falling shut. Goodnight.