Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Illustrated) - JK Rowling and Kim Kay - 4 stars

[Elise]

** Contains mild spoilers, but can people honestly still be spoiled about this book?**

This one has always been my least favourite of the HP series - while still being awesome, because it's HP - and even Jim Kay's wonderful illustrations didn't manage to make me love it any more.

I'm just not a fan of the ending, I think, and of all the "deus ex machina" going on in the book, with the car appearing to save them from the Acromantulas, and Fawkes showing up just at the right time with exactly everything Harry needed to save himself and Ginny. It just has a general feeling of being too easy, which I don't necessarily feel in the other books.

Also, this is a completely subjective point of view, but I'm super disappointed we didn't get an illustration of Ginny (my favourite character). I'm pretty we won't get anything substantial about her before at least the fifth book, since she doesn't have a big role in the next two, so I was a bit upset that we got through the second book - which is arguably the most important one for her - without even seeing her. I mean, so far we've had two full-page illustrations of Draco and Hagrid each, and not even a little sketch of Ginny... :(

That said, Dobby made me laugh out loud. He's SO ugly, it's absolutely hilarious!