I know Harry Potter has been out for over 20 years and there are countless reviews, criticisms, etc on it. But in preparation for my upcoming trip to Harry Potter World at Universal Studios Orlando, I have decided to re-read the series again and post about it. I have never been to Harry Potter World and as a Harry Potter fan for over half my life, I cannot put into words how excited I am to be going! So I have decided these posts aren’t going to be book reviews, but appreciation for each book. So here is the appreciation post for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix!

The first thing I want to give appreciation to about this one is the cover art! This novel has one of my favorite cover arts of the entire series because I love all the blues used and the overall composition of the cover art is really great.

For the novel itself, I appreciate the introduction of characters such as Nymphadora Tonks and Luna Lovegood. Tonks, with her ability to change her appearance whenever she wants, is unique and interesting. Up until the introduction of her character we only knew that wizards could change their appearance with the Polyjuice Potion or turn into an animal. So I appreciate the uniqueness of Tonks. As for Luna, she is delightfully weird, intelligent, and insightful in a way that is odd, but makes perfect sense when you think about it. I think Luna, with her loyalty to her friends, her sense of humor, and intelligence is the perfect addition to Harry’s friend group. Plus she’s a Ravenclaw (my house), so I appreciate that Ravenclaw FINALLY gets a note worthy character. (And before anyone brings up Cho Chang, all I ask is that you don’t!)

And can we take a moment to appreciate the mischievous genius of Fred and George Weasley? Honestly, I think this book had the absolute best Fred and George moments in the entire series! Who didn’t want a Skiving Snackbox when they were younger? And now we can actually get them at Harry Potter World, which is awesome! So hats off to my favorite mischief makers Fred and George Weasley for all they’ve done!

I also appreciate the teenage rebellion of this book. We see Harry and his friends rebel against Umbridge and her awful teaching so they can actually learn how to defend themselves and become better educated individuals. This is another example of Harry and his friends being normal teenagers, making the reader feel like they can relate the characters better. Because I’m sure a lot of us rebelled against something or someone when we were teenagers. I tried to, but it didn’t work out so well!

Overall, this novel answers so many questions that readers had from the start of the series and explored darker themes than the previous novels. We know what Harry and the gang are up against in the books to come, so this novel, though it was a storm, was the calmest storm to happen before the big one in book 7. But we still have one book to go before we talk about that!

What good memories do you have associated with The Order of the Phoenix? How old were you the first time you read it? I would love to know! Have a great start to your week everyone!