I'm not sure whether we've had a book ranking thread on DLP, but a quick search revealed nothing, so I gave it a go:

1. Prisoner of Azkaban (10/10)
Pros: This would probably be a popular choice for the best book in the series. Great plot, Good action, Excellent all around.
Cons: No real problems with this one.

2. Goblet of Fire (9/10)
Pros: The Tri-Wizard Tournament was a novel concept. Voldemort's return was appropriately chilling. Great ending.
Cons: The plan to kidnap Harry was unnecessarily convoluted. It took away much of my attention from Voldemort's return speech.

3. Deathly Hallows (7/10)
Pros: Great fast paced action right from the beginning. The new Voldemort controlled ministry was interestingly depicted. The Dumbledore-Grindelwald backstory was cool. The Hallows presented a nice mystery for most of the book.
Cons: Terrible Deus-ex-machina ending. Snape and Bellatrix's deaths were anticlimatic. Bland epilogue.

4. Chamber of Secrets (7/10)
Pros: I liked the whole Chamber business. Lockart and the Weasleys were fun characters.
Cons: The Basilisk battle was too short for my taste. The Wizarding World wasn't expanded much from PS.

5. Philosopher's Stone (6/10)
Pros: It began the series, and has a certain charm to it. The Protagonist is very well written, and the magical world has a truly magical feel to it.
Cons: I felt it read as too childish on re-reads. The overall plot was inconsistent. A great story for kids, not so much for adults.

6. Order of the Phoenix (5/10)
Pros: Great DOM battle. Umbridge and the Ministry were really villainous. The DA was cool. Luna Lovegood was awesome. Dumbledore had a couple of epic moments.
Cons: Really slow paced and bored me on a lot of occasions. Did we really need a whole chapter based on the OWLs?

7. Half Blood Prince (3/10)
Pros: Great dark atmosphere in the beginning of the story. The Tom Riddle back stories were interesting.
Cons: Not much happened in the book - half of it is Harry stalking Malfoy. Hardly any action till the end. Harry's competence was inexplicably decreased from OOTP. Badly written romance. A lot of the back story was unnecessary given the number of pages it took. Yeah, this was bad.

Agree? Disagree? Do post your own rankings as well.

 

PoA
GoF
OotP (These three can be listed in any order, collectively they're the height of the series IMO)
DH
CoS
PS
HBP

 

PS, GoF, PoA, CoS then the rest in any order.

 

The biggest issue with PoA for me is the lack of the main villain. As a standalone book it's great, as a part of a 7-part series it's a bit too self-contained.

My rank would be:

CoS: Not my favorite, but introduces a lot of concepts and well plotted.
GoF: Great plot, and definitely throws a lot of curveballs.
PoA: Despite my comments, it was still my favorite to read. I actually started reading the series out of order and this was the first one I read.
OotP: Harry's out of character but the prophecy and battles are well set up.
DH: There were some fun parts, but the ending could have been done better.
PS: It's a kids story, but the worldbuilding is nice.
HBP: Why.

 

GoF
OoTP
PoA
CoS
PS
DH
HBP

I think that GoF and OoTP were brilliant. PoA was well written, yes, but it doesn't work well in a series, as EsperJones says. Sirius, however, was a brilliant plot point, and the way she killed him off and set up a Harry/Dumbledore dynamic was awesome. HBP, however, utterly defeated the awesomeness set up in book 5. A wedge between Harry and Albus, Voldemort out in the open, a war threatening to unleash a storm over magical Britain... And what does she give us? A monster in his chest and a potions book. And horcruxes. Bleargh.

 

First read:

POA
COS
GOF
PS
OOTP
HBP
DH

Reread:

POA
OOTP
GOF
HBP
DH
PS
COS

 

1)GOF
POA
DH
PS
HPB
COS
OOTP

GOF is my favorite, since it shows a distinct turn in where the series is heading, like main characters actually dying, real magic being seen, etc. The biggest thing I dislike is everything about Rita Skeeter. Also, Umbridge is the main reason I lowered OOTP's rating. She's written perfectly, she's very hateble, but honestly, I find it hard to read any scene that involves her. Also, pretty much nothing happens in the story, though perhaps if JKR actually killed Mr. Weasley like she wanted, it may have held my attention better.

 

GoF
PoA
OotP
PS
CoS
HBP
DH

So the middle books, followed by the first books, followed by the last books.

Books 3-5 were the golden age for me.

 

GoF
PoA
CoS
PS
HBP
OotP
DH

GoF has always been my favourite, rankings for the rest change every time I read them.

 

I never even thought about rating the books. I like the series as a whole and I don't have the heart to rate books individually.

 

Poa
Gof
Ps
Ootp
Dh
Cos
Hbp

Tough between gof and poa for my favourite

 

Prisoner, Goblet, and Order take the top three, though Order is definitely third.

The other four pretty much alternate places, but I'd say Prince is likely last due to a whole load of nothing happening until the end of the book.

 

Prisoner of Azkaban,
Deathly Hallows,
Goblet of Fire,
Order of the Phoenix,
Philosopher's Stone,
Half-Blood Prince,
and Chamber of Secrets.

 

1. Order of the Phoenix
2. Prisoner of Azkaban
3. Philosopher's Stone
-
4. Goblet of Fire
5. Chamber of Secrets
6. Deathly Hallows
-
....
....
7. Half-blood Prince

 

1. Chamber of Secrets
2. Philosopher's Stone
3-7. All the others

Chamber of Secrets was the height of this series. Harry Potter, at 12 years old, killed a 50 foot snake with a sword. Recognise.

After this, the entire series got derailed because Harry was no longer allowed to progress as a hero, but instead became emo as fuck.

Just to put it in perspective, what spell did Harry finally use to best Voldemort?

That's right. A spell he learned in second year.

/thread

 

Number one is Goblet of Fire. The best mix of adventure and big fantasy plots, with some of the best individual scenes in the series. Number two is Prisoner of Azkaban, for a great plot, better twist and some of the coolest magic in the series. After that...more or less interchangable in terms of quality, although while DH has some big flaws, it does have a ton of cool moments.

 

In the order of those I enjoyed the most:

PoA
PS
CoS
GoF
DH
HBP
OotP

It took me many weeks to waddle through the first few chapters of the OotP, it was so tedious.

 

I'm kind of in the same boat. I've read them so many times that it's hard to judge individual books. I will say that my most enjoyable first time reading experience was Goblet of Fire...

It came out just a few days before I went on a river rafting trip with my family and a few family friends. One of them had bought a copy for their daughter. I remember cleverly befriending her so I could read it with her. We'd pull it out from the dry-bags during the long floating parts of the day's raft - between rapids, parents drinking beer and telling stories - and I'd sit with her in the front of the boat and we'd hold it on our laps between us and read. I was so annoyed with her because she was an incredibly slow reader compared to me. And then she'd want to talk about certain sections and I'd just be like, "no, turn the page, I want to find out what score Harry got on the first task."

Ended up taking the whole week of the trip to read it. Incredibly frustrating, but strangely, kind of worth it.

 

What dropped Chamber on the retreads?


Tiered system, in order of awesome.

First- PoA, GoF, OotP
Second- HBP, PS
Third- CoS, DH

Books 3 through 5 fly by for me on rereads.

 

Long time lurker, first time poster.
I couldn't rate the books first through seventh if I tried, but I am a fan of tier lists.

Top tier- Chamber of Secrets, Prisoner of Azkaban.
Middle tier- Philosopher's Stone, Goblet of Fire.
Low tier- Deathly Hallows, Order of the Phoenix
Bottom tier- Half-Blood Prince.

Goblet of Fire was my favourite for a very long time, but when I read it the third time through I realised that it really wasn't as good as I thought it was. The hugely convoluted plot to capture Harry was the big thing that stuck out at me, other than that I have a number of little nitpicks with the book.

Half-Blood Prince always felt like a great big exposition dump to me. I've only read it in its entirety twice because it bores me to tears.

I definitely think that the first half of the series is stronger than the second, I think that the latter lacks a certain charm and whimsy, but that may just be my own preferences.

That said, I enjoyed all the books and I definitely think I got my money's worth from them.