Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling

Summary: J. K. Rowling continues her phenomenally popular Harry Potter series with yet another tale of magic, mirth, and mayhem. Like its predecessor, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is chock-full of fascinating characters, frightful events, and fun wizardry.p

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 girl's 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?

Review:  Why does everyone always hate on Chamber of Secrets...? It's one of my favorites (of the books, not the movies; the movie is awful). Seriously, though. Creepy voices in the wall talking about blood, slaughtered roosters, people turned into stone, and "her skeleton will lie in the chamber forever"? That's some legitimate scary, there. Not to mention two of my favorite lines: "I expect I was hopeless, was I?" and "Never trust something that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain!" (Words to live by.)

Admitedly, I wasn't into the death-day party, or the Polyjuice potion. And the Quidditch was kind of uninspiring in this one. But I love seeing how things that seem insignificant or sufficiently explained come back to be SUPER important later, and I think Chamber of Secrets does an excellent job of setting the stage for serious stuff to go down later, while also being pretty kick-A in its own right.

Goodreads Shelves:  addictive, bechdel-test, fluffy, funny, is-a-movie, my-kind-of-woman, pretentious

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