The trouble with these books is that they're always unnecessarily long-winded. It's often too much. Then about 90% in you get the absolutely INCREDIBLE stuff. Like the annual showdown with Voldemort at the end of the Hogwarts school year. 
 You read for the showdown. You just have to trudge through 450-odd pages of foreshadowing, pointless new characters, and a lot of training montages, to get there. 
 I do fucking love Rowan though.