Title: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Author: J. K. Rowling
Series: Harry Potter #2
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 251
Published: 1998, Bloomsbury Publishing
My Grade: 5 out of 5 snakes

GOODREADS’ DESCRIPTION

The Dursleys were so mean and hideous that summer that all Harry Potter wanted was to get back to the Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. But just as he’s packing his bags, Harry receives a warning from a strange, impish creature named Dobby who says that if Harry Potter returns to Hogwarts, disaster will strike.

And strike it does. For in Harry’s second year at Hogwarts, fresh torments and horrors arise, including an outrageously stuck-up new professor, Gilderoy Lockhart, a spirit named Moaning Myrtle who haunts the girls’ bathroom, and the unwanted attentions of Ron Weasley’s younger sister, Ginny. But each of these seem minor annoyances when the real trouble begins, and someone, or something, starts turning Hogwarts students to stone. Could it be Draco Malfoy, a more poisonous rival than ever? Could it possibly be Hagrid, whose mysterious past is finally told? Or could it be the one everyone at Hogwarts most suspects: Harry Potter himself?

MY REVIEW

Still as good as I remember it from my childhood. Similar to The Sorcerer’s Stone in that sense that something is always happening. But not quite as much, because this book gives more environmental descriptions. Most of it I remember from reading the book and watching the movies countless times, but I still got surprised here and there. For example, I had completely forgot how Moaning Myrtle died or how Lockhart ended his time at Hogwarts as a professor or what happened to Mr. Weasly’s flying car.

It makes me happy that a story so well-known by me can still surprise me and entertain me like I was 12 again. I am so glad I decided to finally reread these books (in its original language). My original plan was to read one book, read another one between. But these are too darned good to be skipped. I will read all of them in one go! I should be done in the beginning of March or mid-March depending on how much time my master thesis will take. Now it is time for the Prisoner of Azkaban, a rather dark book if I don’t misremember.