All 7 Harry Potter books, ranked worst to best

By Bryce Olin | Jun 19, 2023

LONDON - FEBRUARY 28: Part of a collection of 550 first edition Harry Potter books are displayed on February 28, 2008 in London. Bloomsbury Auctions are selling the collection, known as 'The Property of a Gentleman', in their Children's and Illustrated Books, Original Artwork, Private Press and Limited Editions' two day sale on February 28 and 29, 2008 in London. The collection of Harry Potter books range from Finnish, Gaelic, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Welsh and six different Indian dialects to Hebrew, Turkish, Polish,Indonesian, ancient Greek and Latin. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images) /

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Harry Potter Series: Classic Editions Illustrated by Mary GrandPré. Image courtesy Scholastic /

4. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is probably the most polarizing of all the Harry Potter books. It seems fans either love or hate this one, but for me, it’s definitely a tier below the best books of the series and a tier above the lesser ones. That’s why Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince lands right here in the middle of these rankings.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the sixth book of the series. It was released in 2005, two years before Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. In the book, Harry finds a potions textbook that once belonged to the “Half-Blood Prince.” In the margins, there are instructions for how to brew the potions, along with new spells and ideas that intrigue Harry. Readers also get their first extended look into Voldemort’s past as Harry and Dumbledore use the pensieve to review memories of Tom Riddle before he became the most feared wizard since Grindelwald.

On the plus side, that look into Voldemort’s past is very important to the story and to Harry’s eventual defeat of the dark wizard. It’s one of the strong points of the book, but there are some weak points as well. While we get a lot of good scenes with Harry and Dumbledore, it isn’t the most action-packed book of the series. Things don’t really get going until the very end when Harry and Dumbledore venture to a cave, obtain what they think is a horcrux, and then return to Hogwarts. There, Dumbledore is killed by Severus Snape, and Harry’s mission becomes clear: find the horcruxes and defeat Voldemort.

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