Spoiler notice: The first part avoids the central mystery. A clearly marked section below discusses the culprit and the ending of Storm Front.
It took me weeks to finish Storm Front. That feels like an odd thing to say about a book featuring a wizard who gets hit with a baseball bat, visits a vampire and cannot even have a date without a demon turning up. There was plenty here that made me laugh, and the final stretch was genuinely fun. But getting there was a slog.
Previously on iSoul: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince — The Magic Grows Up — the full-cast audiobook brought out the story’s humour, relationships and gathering darkness before the final journey.
Seven books later, I’ve finally finished Harry Potter.
Listening to the full-cast audiobook of Deathly Hallows made the end of the journey feel very different from the wonder of Philosopher’s Stone. The ordinary school days, lessons, feasts and Quidditch matches are mostly gone. Harry, Ron and Hermione are no longer children discovering magic. They’re trying to finish the task Dumbledore left behind while the world they know falls apart around them.
Major spoilers for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, with references to later Harry Potter instalments, follow.
Previous: Order of the Phoenix Is About the Life Around the Story
I’ve finished Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and I’m not ready to rank it. It’s still lingering in my head.
I fell in love with the original sense of magic: discovering Hogwarts, meeting its ghosts, learning about strange lessons and hidden passages, and watching three children find their place in an extraordinary world. I still love the smaller details — Nearly Headless Nick’s Deathday Party, Peeves creating chaos, Filch secretly trying to learn magic, and all those little corners of Hogwarts the films never had time to explore.
Another Spider-Man film, another miserable time for Peter Parker. Some things never change.
Major spoilers for Spider-Man: Brand New Day follow.
Peter keeps going # Spider-Man: Brand New Day finds Peter living with the consequences of losing everyone closest to him. Aunt May is gone, while MJ and Ned no longer remember who he is. He carries on being Spider-Man, but he’s clearly struggling to move forward. That’s the Peter Parker I’ve always known: capable of saving everyone else, yet rarely able to sort his own life out.
Previous: Goblet of Fire Is Where Harry Potter’s World Opens Up
The life around the main story # Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix follows Harry through his fifth year at Hogwarts after Voldemort’s return. Much of the wizarding world does not want to believe him. The Ministry begins interfering heavily with Hogwarts, Harry becomes increasingly isolated and angry, and the school year turns into a mixture of exams, politics, friendships, rumours, punishment and resistance. At the same time, strange dreams and visions seem to connect him more closely to Voldemort.
Major spoilers for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire follow.
Previous: It Only Took Me Twenty-Odd Years to Listen to Harry Potter
I have finished the full-cast audiobook of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and this might be the book where I finally understood how much the films had to leave behind.
I knew the main story, of course. The Triwizard Tournament, the graveyard, Voldemort’s return: none of that was new to me. What surprised me was how much life exists between those events. There are more conversations, more side stories and much more time inside Harry’s head. Hogwarts feels busy in a way it rarely does on screen.
Spoilers for Reacher Season 4 follow.
One criticism I keep seeing about Reacher is that it is formulaic, and that is fair. Reacher turns up somewhere new, realises something is wrong and gets involved with a group of strangers. Before long, he has uncovered something much bigger than anyone expected and has to deal with it through investigation, instinct and the fact that he is considerably larger than almost everyone else.
Major spoilers for Mushoku Tensei Season 3, Part 1 follow.
Mushoku Tensei has trained me to fear two words: Turning Point.
The moment they appear, I know something has changed. The consequences may not arrive immediately, and I may not understand what has shifted until much later, but Rudeus’s life will not continue in quite the same direction.
Season 3’s first part might be the strongest example of that so far, partly because it spends so much time on quieter lives before showing how badly they can be broken.