I have been told that i need to comment on this book. So i read it between 1 and 8 am on July 21st. I really enjoyed it. I liked how all the places and all the people that harry has come in contact with over the previous six books came back. right down to gringotts, and even sirius’ motorbike.
The use of the short little references has been a strength of the series but i thought we had seen most of them. I didn’t expect Grindlewald to be as important as he is. I am glad to know more of Dumbledore’s past, and to know even the little things like how dumbledore’s nose was broken. I knew that the room of requirement was important and especially the room where harry hides the half blood prince’s book. the diadem being there was super cool.
there was a lot of death, the only one i didn’t expect was Dobby and that was the only time i cried during reading. i’m torn about harry’s death/not death. part of me wanted expected and thought he had to die. and yet part of me is relieved that he didn’t die.
the epilogue, i have mixed feelings on this as well, i see that JK wanted to show that the trio were happy and that the wizarding world has been rebuilt and all, but it was a lot on the corny side. i have been more satisfied by the interviews.
I may write more later this laptop and my fingernails are driving me nuts.

Oh man. Well, we knew it was coming, and after my strong distaste for the Half Blood Prince let me warn you now this is not going to go well for Ms. Rowling.

Spoilers will almost certainly follow.

I had two main requirements which were necessary for me to like the book, which were:

1. If there was a wizarding war (which includes any wizard battles) I expect lots of deaths.
2. Of Harry, Ron, & Hermione, at least two must die, if one of these is Harry, then Voldemort must also die. If Voldemort dies, Harry must be one of the two.

My reasons for these are more complicated but are briefly as follows. In war, people die, and since there aren’t hundreds or thousands of soldiers to throw at Voldemort, many of our main characters must die. The second is more complicated, but if you were the bad guy and you knew your main target constantly hung out with two of his best friends, then those two are escalated up the target list nearly as high as Undesireable Number One himself.

In my opinion (this is opinion because of the first point), Rowling failed on both counts. The second is more obvious- here are the spoilers- Voldemort (in theory) died; Harry, Ron, and Hermoine all lived. Even if you count Harry as dying (which I don’t – and I think her little avada kedavra only took out the Voldemort part of you, theory is bogus) that is still only one, and I required two. As for the first, she had a few good deaths that were real and believable but most of these came early in the novel, since her battle scenes are rushed and we have really little time to feel any sadness over the loss of people in those last one hundred pages.

Sidenote: All of the trained aurors can get killed (except Kingsley – and I am not even sure he is techncially an auror) but not Ron or Hermoine (or Ginny, Luna, Neville, and a bunch of other kids who never get mentioned- cough: Cho).

Rowling can maintain her points for getting children to read long books that are fairly difficult and dense, and motivating them to be excited to read, but since I am going to judge books as literature, and at this point I am trying to validate these books as a (the?) strong point of fantasy this decade (they may have to simply settle for top-selling), it is tough for me to get past this.

To close on a positive note, I think she did handle quite beautifully the problem she almost locked herself into of the classic fantasy quest with the Horcruxes, by creating the Hallows and also not focusing the books like a giant list of destroyed Horcruxes, one of my largest worried at the end of book 6. (I am afraid the other worry does remain, the strangely shifting intelligence of Harry/Dumbledore/Snape/Voldemort, and in the end I still question many of the decisions these four characters made – Gringotts?/Was that the best time?/You couldn’t have done anything better with the students at hogwarts?/Expelliarmus- that was all it took?)

The plot remains twisting and complex, interesting and original, many of the ideas are quite wonderful, even if in the genre of fantasy it might have little lasting impact, and even if the more recent books could have been improved hugely by a strong editorial hand.

The final book in the Harry Potter series, is a letdown. The author in her haste to tie up loose ends uses far too many contrived plots. This causes the book to feel significantly different than the rest of the series. The plot does not flow smoothly from event to event almost as if the author created a list of what had to happen and what plot lines needed tied up, and then wrote the events checking them off and sort of stuck them together. To be honest I would think the book should have been split in twain and then each half written up to the proper length. None the less the book is a necessary read even if it is a disappointing culmination to a fantastic series.

Watch for Green.

So without giving away any major plot twists, I think that the final Harry Potter book ties together a lot of the loose ends…and even important things that as a reader you didn’t realize were important until now. It certainly has a few slow points, but they build up the tension that you, as a reader, are feeling-knowing that the story is leading to something big. Normally after I have finished reading, I am left with this feeling of completion. This time, I was left emotionally drained; perhaps that is a combination of so many books coming together in one-but it took awhile to really sort out what I thought. I didn’t automatically think (as I would usually) – “what a fantastic book!” or “what rubbish!” it took some time to get there. This complexity of story is what makes her such a fantastic writer.

Update: Since everyone is discussing plot twists, I figured….why not. I think that the book started out strongly with the first chapter, and kept that pace for the first third of the book. When the trio set out on their own, it certainly slows down with their camping-and that’s where the book starts to disappoint. The buildup is necessary but slows the reader down. However the end was worth it; Snape turns out to be neither good/evil, just human. She doesn’t try to change him-the decisions he makes revolve around his love for Lily. Harry represents everything that he lost and at the end he still hates him. When Dumbledore’s background is slowly revealed it seems like such an important part of the plot I almost felt-DUH-why did I never really think about where he comes from, much in the way that Harry does. More later…

Warning SPOILERS follow hugely…

Alright, well I seem to have gotten around to this first, so without attempting to be overly pessimistic, I am dissapointed in this book for a number of reasons.

Most importantly, I believe although everyone loves the plot and focuses upon the plot of these novels, for the first time on a large scale we have lost all of the slight character development these books had. Every character that we have formed bonds with has now been stripped of those familiar habits. Dumbledore is blatantly wrong. Harry is constantly correct (after being horribly wrong on nearly every assumption he made in Order of the Phoenix). Hermione’s intelligence is nearly ignored and not at all used for anything constructive (except a few after the fact: “i knew he wasn’t a Prince”, etc.). And most consuming, Snape, who we are told to trust, told has changed, and we even see being protective – if still a jerk – is resolutely (saving large plot twists of unbelievable proportions) evil.

From the beginning these novels have not been focused on character growth, they have been event focused and plot driven, but here we lose all sense of personality. These characters are no longer people, they are just tools to accomplish a job. Even JKR has said, she is following the plan she drew up at the beginning. But the characters that have been spun are not the concepts that she once had, they are nearly living, breathing, captivating humans who are now being thrown around like dolls.

If you are going to convince us Snape is good, Dumbledore is trustworthy, and Harry is a teenager – then make us believe it! What 16 year old is on the mark so many times that he manages to outsmart everyone around him? And as a book that is meant to answer questions, I think it needs to get a better grasp on it’s own environment. How many Aurors are there? Why can’t they stop the Death-Eaters? Are there more good guys or bad guys? What about all the other wizards in the world – we heard once about a French school like Hogwarts, do they care about Voldemort?

And Horcruxes? Why do we need to unnecessarily complicate what has up to this point been such a fluid narrative sense. The books have all been very non-quest based. It was surviving that was important, it was normal, average life. Taking classes and making relationships and figuring out what was going on in the world. Now we have a to-do list that is your classic hero-quest. Not to mention a book 6 that is really quite incomplete. We are left around with the ending stating “exams are postponed”. Till when? Hogwarts might not even re-open, and they are just randomly postponing exams? Of course all the professors seem to be entirely confused now with their headmaster being killed. None of them even though Snape could be evil, even knowing his history. The only person in the world who seems to have thought it was possible was a sixteen year old boy. That makes sense.

But in this world it does make sense. The story is not about Harry’s life. It is about the plot and solely Harry’s battle with Voldemort. Unimportant daily events that once made interesting side stories have been stripped from the most recent addition to the Potter cycle. No longer is the DA important, because Harry has decided such, and thus all the other student blindly accept that they are no longer needed. Neville disappears almost entirely. Really classes disappear as well, save Potions, but only because of his textbook. The story is no longer about Hogwarts, the story is no longer about Harry’s friends, it has dissolved into a war (although even the assassinations and the muggle world is only briefly highlighted), and that is what saddens me about the HBP, all of the connections that the series worked so hard to achieve over five novels are forgotten. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is just that, a story chasing a few main characters in the days before the world ends.

i promised i’d post again once i’d finished. 6 hours even start to finish and i cried and cried. i’ll write more later.

No really. This is not a spoiler to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

I specifically am writing this before I have my grubby little book-devouring hands on this book in less than twenty-four hours.

Carolyn’s Report on the HBP is posted here, and she goes into far more detail about what may (and probably will) actually happen. But that is not what I am about to here describe.

The largest question and therefore most interesting large-concept to look at, is “Will Harry Die?” This is important, for many reasons, it has been foreshadowed, he is the main character, and it is binary. He can only live or die. There is no other option (or is there?).

Carolyn would argue that Harry Potter will die. And she has many valid points which I will attept to do justice to below:

1. Harry Potter and Voldemort’s lives are intimately linked, for the villain to die, the hero must.
2. Harry Potter wants to be with his parents … joining them requires death.
3. Harry Potter is too volatile to be left alive (i mean come on, the kid is crazy).
4. Harry Potter has no purpose if Voldemort were to somehow die before him. What would he do with his time?

Reasons he may live:

1. Harry Potter is a billion-dollar franchise and the only way to make more Harry Potter books is for him to live.
2. Specifically, we are talking three more books about Auror school – already outlined.
3. If Harry Potter dies people will be upset.

But most importantly, I think we need to focus on the fact that if Harry had lived when these books were not popular, they would have never become classics. This is no longer an issue, because they have sold too many copies to not become classics. They outsell every other book in existance, and they will be remembered for that (if little else). So really, in the end, I am saying it doesn’t matter. If JKR needs the money, (she shouldn’t) then she keeps him alive, or in some state of easy revival, so that she can possibly write three more books. (Though anything she writes at this point is an automatic best-seller.) If she wants to try to give these books any amount of reality(?) or possibly metaphorical strength, she has to kill him.

A few other notes, JKR said after book 3 – I think – that she had outlined the entire main plot points of all seven books very very early on in this process. She also said she would remain true to those notes. If she still follows this rule – and granted she said this a few years ago – then he is probably heading straight for the magical wizard coffin. But then we won’t be able to check this until the original plans go up on eBay.

About a week ago I asked the question at JustCurio.us “Will Harry Potter die at the end of book 7?” The responses I recieved are:

1. One can only hope.
2. god willing
3. he’d better die soon
4. I hope so.
5. no
6. He should have died at the beginning of the first book.
7. I sure hope not!
8. No.
9. what is indina’s state flower?

At the end of all this … it seems people don’t really care. And they certainly aren’t unanimous. Harry will either die or he will live. And the Harry Potter books will become some amazing phenomena of the turn of the millenia, where people went crazy over wizards, even though the pope says they are soul sucking books. Harry has secured his fate, he – and we – should not worry about little things like death.

I’m sticking with the British editions. It is especially fitting for this one because i was in Europe when it was released, and for those of you who remember this was the last one to be released in the UK before the US. So i got it and read it before it was released in the US. I was on a trip to Dover. We got the book in a really cute bookshop then I started reading on the hovercraft ride across the Channel back to the mainland to drive back to Brussels. I had it read before I went to sleep that night.

arguably the best in the series (i am reserving judgment until i have all seven reread at least 5 times) This one sets the tone for the growing up of Harry and friends and really starts the darkness that have really transformed this series.

This one fits right in with the Philosopher’s Stone, i read this one too when i was supposed to be cleaning my room sometime before the craze hit the states. I read them both twice in the weekend before my mom noticed and made me actually clean my room. oh well.

I realize that this is the Latin version, but it has the same contents and i like the bloomsbury press cover better. Besides i also believe that the Philosopher’s Stone should not have been dumbed down for an American audience. It is quite insulting. So anyway, what else can i say about this book we’ve all read it. I am only slightly Hary Potter obsessed, i read this one sometime in 1999 while my dad was workign in Europe and slightly before the craze hit stateside. I was supposed to be cleaning my room, but these weird books i hadn’t heard of and hadn’t read were too distracting.