I'm 99.99% sure that what i'm reading is fake, but at this point she could be just phoning it in.

Haha. There are fake versions of Harry Potter?

Half-Blood Prince does not start with Harry and Dudley needing to pee. Half-Blood Prince starts with the minister of magic. There are like 40 pages before we even see Harry. The start pretty much sucks, but it gets really good by about page 100.

ahhh! that's what i thought : >

it's not that terrible actually...and it's amazing someone went to so much trouble...

i'll email it to anyone who wants...

"but at this point she could be just phoning it in."

Amber, I read hundreds of childrens books to my kids when they were young including Madeleine L'Engle, the Mary Poppins series, Wizard of Oz series, The Chronicles of Narnia, and Andrew Lang's Fairy Books. I have tried to read 3 of JK Rowling's books but never got past a 100 pages or so. I am just so glad she came along after my sons grew up.

I did post spoilers to the next book.

amberglow, I must read that! haha email's in the profile.

i came to the books late,and someone i worked with had them, so i got to read them...now i work for a different mag, and missed the 6th (i thought the 2nd and 4th were the best tho)

your spoiler: Harry writes to Penthouse: "I never thought it would happen to me..." ; >

it's on its way, sass

I read it last year and I barely remember the details so I cannot comment on Dudley's and Harry's needing to pee, however I was very much unimpressed overall with the book, particularly Rowling's prose.

Apparently Half-Blood Prince was originally the second book, not number six. As it is now and reworked, it reads more like the first half of a two-volume conclusion. Structurally, the Potter series reminds me greatly of Stephen King's Dark Tower series, and I am hoping that Rowling doesn't suffer from King's inability to write a satisfactory non-trite ending.

Do you have a fake? The best way to confirm that is to note some specific excerpts and compare them to a copy at a book store.

it's a pdf, from a torrent of a bunch of books...

it read more clunky than the original hardcovers i had read (altho they were clunky too), but it's actually a full book and enough is believable about it almost....i think i'll finish it anyway...what's weird is Harry becoming friends with Dudley, and then with Draco, which made me know it was fake (altho i did want confirmation)

(after tokyo and then atlantic city, i won't actually be buying books for a while)

My brother the doctor, who's in his sixties, loves Harry Potter. In fact, I'm surprised he doesn't line up at midnight at Barnes & Noble with all the kids to get his copy when the new ones come out. He's a true fan. I always tell my high school students this whenever they're self-conscious about reading it.

I liked the initial book through what was obviously the first act, until after the Sorting Hat and the arrival at Hogwarts. After that it became badly plotted, clunkily written, and completely boring. *clutches collected works of E. Nesbit*

Sounds like you've been tricked into reading some dirty, dirty fanfiction there amberglow.

One must always be wary of underaged wizard porn. (Constant vigilance!)

i got a real one (this one starts with Fudge and his replacement meeting the Prime Minister), i think : >