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…