If you're gearing up for the newest Harry Potter novel, you better have a lot of time on your hands because, at over 800 pages, this tome will keep you busy for quite a while. "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" is the fifth book in J.K. Rowling's extremely popular series about the adventures of a boy wizard and his friends at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. With each book, the series has been getting progressively darker and this one is certainly no exception.Like the others, this installment begins in the summer, with Harry barely surviving the Dursleys and anticipating his upcoming year at Hogwarts. Upon arriving at school, he finds that Hogwarts is not the perfect place it had been in the past: relationships with his friends are tense, rumors are circulating about his exploits the previous year, and the Ministry of Magic refuses to acknowledge that he-who-should-not-be-named has returned. Indeed, the political battle between Albus Dumbledore, principal of Hogwarts, and Dolores Umbridge, High Inquisitor of the Ministry of Magic, is one of the focal points of the book. Without giving too much away, the best way to describe this volume as compared to the previous ones is that it is much more mature. Harry, who has always acted with the help of his friends, finds himself on his own for much of the book. Even Dumbledore, whom he could always count on, is absent for the majority of this installment. The "Potter" series even goes in a romantic direction with a subplot about Harry's attempts to romance with Cho Chang, a peer who Harry has been gazing at for several years. We also learn of the relationship between Mr. Weasley and his son Percy, politics in the magical world, interactions between Harry and his godfather Sirius Black, Harry's family genealogy and his first encounter with. With a much more complex ending than the earlier books, and Harry having deeper and more serious relationships with the people around him, this fifth edition is clearly the most complicated and melancholy of the series.

For those readers who have made it through the first 1819 pages of Potter, this book will be a delight. But for those of you out there who have, by some miracle, not yet ventured into Rowling's magical world, be warned: even though it has some recapping, there are very important elements in the previous novels (especially "Goblet of Fire") that are vital to understanding this one completely.

Although this book is long it's a relatively quick read and keeps the reader's attention very well. Don't forget - while all of the events listed above are occurring, Harry is taking classes and studying for his Ordinary Wizarding Levels exams, all of which are described in detail. Let us just hope that the screenwriter will cut out a lot before the movie is made!