Customer Reviews

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7)

5 star:		(2,881)
4 star:		(453)
3 star:		(199)
2 star:		(74)
1 star:		(97)

 

 

This is arguably the most "hyped" book in history, and if J.K. Rowling had to sneak down to the kitchen for a glass of red wine to calm her nerves while writing The Goblet of Fire (as she said she did), one wonders what assuaged her while writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The collective breath of tens of millions of readers has been held for two years...and now...was it worth the wait? Did Ms. Rowling live up to the hype? (For that, amongst hundreds of questions, is really the only question that matters.)

The answer, most assuredly, is YES.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is told in a strikingly different style than the previous six books - even different from The Half Blood Prince, and, I daresay, it's a better written, better edited, tighter narrative. And while the action is lively and well paced throughout, Rowling found a way to answer most of our questions while introducing new and complex ideas. What fascinated me was this: Some people were right, with regard to who is good, who is bad, who will live, who will die - but almost nobody got the "why" part correct. I truthfully expected an exciting but rather predictable ending, but instead was thrown for a loop. We've known that Rowling is fiendishly clever for years - but I didn't think she was *this* clever.

Not since turning the final page of The Return of the King twenty-eight years ago have I felt such a keen sense of loss. My love affair (indeed, everyone's love affair, I imagine) with all things Harry began somewhere in the first three chapters of The Sorcerer's Stone, and has lasted, on this side of the Atlantic, three months shy of nine years. For all that time we have waited and wondered - was Dumbledore right to trust Snape? Will Ron and Hermione get together? What's to become of Ginny and Harry? What really happened on that tower, when Dumbledore was blasted backwards, that "blast" atypical of the Avada Kedavra curse as we've seen it when used throughout the series. So many more questions than those listed here, and so many devilishly well-hidden hints. The answers, as I hinted above, will shock and awe you.

When first we met Harry Potter, he was "The Boy Who Lived", with an address of "The Cupboard Under the Stairs". Who could help but bleed sympathy for Harry, treated abysmally - abused, really - by the only blood relatives he had, and forced to live under said stairs by those awful Muggles, the Dursleys? It was a sensationally brilliant introduction, one that ensured that our heartstrings would be plucked and enchanted to sing. He was The Boy Who Lived.

Since reading that first book, we have enjoyed Rowling's spry sense of humor - portraits that spoke, stairways that moved at any given moment, Hagrid jinxing Dudley so that a pigs tail grew from his behind, Fred and George's fantastic creations, etc, etc., etc., and more etc's. There was a sense of wonder and magic in Rowling's writing, so thoroughly captivating that the recommended age group of 9-12 in no way resembled the book's actual audience. It was common to see adults walking about with hardcover copies of the latest book, sans dust jacket (to hide the fact that they were reading a "kids" book, I suppose). It was also common to hear of eight year olds sitting down with a seven-hundred-plus page book! By themselves! If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it.

As for Harry, we admired him. He wasn't afraid to stand up for what he felt was right, even if he found himself in detention for it. He was brutally honest, and immensely courageous and loyal. Harry came to embody, at times, who we would like to be. He wasn't perfect, of course. He suspected Snape of being the one who was after the Sorcerer's Stone, and in The Chamber of Secrets, he thought that Malfoy was the heir of Slytherin. This didn't diminish Harry in our eyes - it made him more human, more real, and even, perhaps, more enviable.

Endless fan sites have been erected. For an adult to go to any of them, and find that thirteen year olds are having an easier time parsing out the books plots, subplots, and mysteries, was (for me at least) humbling, but yet also a testament to Rowling herself, and her remarkable creation. She encouraged an entire generation of young readers to read and to think for themselves.

But the time has come to say good-bye, for this is truly the end.

So good-bye, Harry. Good-bye Hermione, Ron, Professor Dumbledore, *Professor* Snape, Professor McGonagall, Professor Hagrid, Ginny, Fred, George, Neville, Dobby (and all the house elves), even Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters. We will miss all of you, every character we encountered, from Muggle to Mudblood to hippogriff and owl, and everything about the world you all so vibrantly inhabit. And to Ms. Rowling: know that you have brought immeasurable joy to millions and millions of Muggles worldwide, and know that we cannot possibly thank you enough. What a tremendous gift you were given. Thank you for sharing it with us.

*SPOILERS: please don't read if you haven't finished the book*
After reading the seventh and final installment of the Harry Potter series, as well as many of these reviews, I simply cannot believe that anyone would rate this book with less than 5 stars. I have read reviews where people say that the ending is too "light and fluffy", or that "Harry should have died", and that the whole deathly hallows part of the plot is pointless because, in the end, Harry does not keep the hallows. Can no-one here see why JK Rowling ended the series as she did? I grew up with Harry Potter, the first book having been released when I was about 9 or 10. I cannot express how depressing it would have been had Harry died, for(forgive me for the cheeziness) if Harry had died surely there was no hope for the rest of us. Furthermore, the ending is not "light and fluffy". Harry overcomes Voldemort as his character develops, as he finally understands how to finish the Dark Lord once and for all- as he allows himself to be sacrificed for the benefit of "the greater good". The deathly hallows merely stand as the temptation for Harry to become all-powerful, to make the same mistake that Voldemort and Dumbledore(when he was young) made. His choice to turn down the opportunity to evade death not only speaks on his true character, but sets him apart from those who would try to harness this power. Even if Harry had chosen to keep the Hallows for good purposes, would he not eventually turn into the same type of tyrant as Grindelwald, as Voldemort, and as Dumbledore would have become? Yes, the hallows did appear and disappear in this one book, but because Harry chose NOT to keep them for himself, he chose the path of the pure-hearted. By this action, we truly see how much Harry has grown and matured. We also see just how different Harry really is from Voldemort, a question Harry himself had been wondering for some time.

So for those of you that bash this book for not ending in total destruction, and claim that "life is not fair and evil really does win", please remember that life is only what you make of it. Only those of us who grew up with Harry can really say just how much his life means to us, and I would just like to thank JK Rowling for this wonderful finishing piece of the Harry Potter series.

This 17-disc audio version of the final Harry Potter book is a worthy way to experience the story without reading it. It features the rich baritone of narrator Jim Dale, who tells the tale with just the right understated touch, supplying all of the characters' voices.

As for Dale's accent, it's appropriately British but not at all too thick. Each word is clear and easy to understand. If you've bought any of the earlier Potter audio CDs you know what to expect: Dale narrated all of those, too.

By the way, note that this is an UNABRIDGED audio book. Listening to it all takes 21 hours!

The story is dark, and too violent for younger kids, but overall one of the best in the Harry Potter series. Nothing seems forced or thrown together. Author J.K. Rowling wraps up her many plot points and reveals the fates of her characters in ways that almost always surprise you, but afterward seem inevitable.

And how she does it is so inventive! Many throwaway moments and whispered remarks from earlier books foreshadow what happens here, and devices that had little importance before, such as Sirius's flying motorcycle, now play key roles. While creating yet another gripping tale, the author also ties her entire epic together with the skill of a true literary master. As a writer myself, I really admire her skill. (Last time I checked, Rowling was outselling me by about, oh, a billion to one.)

In addition, the book treats its title character with the complexity he deserves. It portrays the (now) young man as disillusioned, full of doubt, overwhelmed -- a tortured soul who, though a responsible leader in an all-out war, often seems to yearn to do nothing more than sweet-talk Ginny Weasley.

Parents should know, however, that this one is a real creepfest, with the most explicitly violent scenes of any book in the series. It's way too brutal for grade schoolers. Also, unlike the earlier Potter tales, the far-reaching vocabulary requires about a 6th-grade education.

I know many people won't like this review, so I prepare myself at the outset for a barrage of unhelpful votes. I am not planning any major spoilers, but be warned: this review is mainly meant for the consumption of people who've read the book. After all, how many people out there are really planning to base their decision to read this on the opinion of a few internet reviewers?

This book provides pretty much everything we've been promised from the outset: an ending, and a satisfying one at that -- but not without its price. Many die, not just the two Rowling mentioned in so many interviews. Many beloved characters die, and some of them die "off screen" as it were, so that we as readers aren't even privy to the details of their deaths, or their final moments of life. Some of these deaths will bring tears to the eyes of any loyal Potter devotee, I've no doubt of that. But as for the main death, the one so many have wondered about? Well, that's where Rowling falls back on a few too-worn literary devices, and where she loses one of her stars.

I found this book to be far too full of easy short cuts and simplistic cliches to give it five stars. Far too many times, Harry and his friends were "mysteriously" saved at the last minute. And the real answers to these so-called mysteries will fall much more easily into the hands of die-hard Potter fanatics who've spent hours studying the books and pouring over the fan sites than they ever do into the hands of the characters themselves. This is too often frustrating. Perhaps it's unfair to criticize or punish Rowling for the perseverance and intelligence of her fans, but the fact is that many of her secrets have been guessed. In fact, the few that haven't seem only to surprise because Rowling conveniently has them pop up for the first time in this book. Magical objects we've seen many times before suddenly have new and useful -- and VERY convenient -- magical properties. People we've only heard of have convenient new information and relevance to the plot.

She lost the other star because of omissions. Unexplained (and again, very convenient) plot twists, otherwise known as plot holes, are all over the book. A book this long that purports to be the end of an epic series should not have this many plot holes and inexplicable events. (None of which I can go into detail about without giving up major spoilers -- sorry.) And most damning of all, when some of the plot holes are explained, it's done in a manner resembling what the brilliant movie "The Incredibles" referred to as "monologuing" -- when one character (usually the bad guy) sits around explaining the whole plot and nothing bad happens to the good guys while all these loose ends are conveniently tied up. For some reason, the villain, no matter how vicious he has been throughout the story, always conveniently waits to attack until the hero's had plenty of time to get all the answers he needs to defeat the bad guy. The only change Rowling makes to this shopworn device is that she does it via magical means. (Though in her case, the magical mean in question is the Pensieve -- something shopworn in and of itself, considering the number of times it's now been used in this series to convey crucial information.) I was also sorely disappointed to realize that she left out a number of things she practically promised fans would be included in this book. For instance, many fans have asked her what Harry's parents did for a living. She always said she couldn't tell us because it would be too big a plot spoiler for the upcoming novels. Well, now the novels are all finished and we still don't know. Why didn't she include that in this final book, if it really was supposed to matter so much? And why did she leave so much crucial information out of her far too short epilogue?

There is no doubt that in Harry Potter Rowling has created a brave and endurable hero, one who will linger in the hearts and minds of readers for generations to come. But in this humble reader's opinion, she has also created one for whom the struggle ended a bit too quickly and easily, of whom too many things are left unknown, and for whom answers and help came too readily and too conveniently in the end.

Then again . . . maybe I just wanted it to last a little longer. Because it's over now, and nothing like Harry Potter is ever happening to this humble reader again.

Dear Miss Granger,

Now that you have completed your seventh year of Hogwarts (I assume you got academic credit for your interesting "internship" hunting Horcruxes and Hallows) and are preparing to join the working world, I am writing to offer you the post of my assistant librarian. Your conduct in Book 7 of the Harry Potter series has convinced me that you would make a superb Assistant Stern Librarian:

Your love of books was never more apparent than when you packed your magical backpack and spent so much time deciding which volumes should be taken along with the tent, clothes and food. That is just like me packing for vacation.

Your wide reading always seems to save the day--case in point, when a certain otherwise superb wizard did not know the importance of Godrick's Hollow, your knowledge of Bagshott's The History of Magic kept him on the right track.

Your ability to whip up a good dish from scrounged mushrooms shows you can get by on a librarian's salary.

Dumbledore left you a book in his will--and as far as I am concerned that says everything about your mission in life.

As the main Muggle-born character you embody the soul of this series' message of tolerance and you are the one character who NEVER abandons Harry Potter in the Deathly Hallows.

Oh, and slightly off the topic, since you seem to have moved on, could you tell Victor Krum I am a huge fan and give him my number! Your peer in reading,

The Stern Librarian (I could also use your help with my Silencing Spells).

Having been a fan of the books since 1999, I was anxiously awaiting this final chapter. However, I was left disappointed. It is by no means a bad book, but simply not everything I hoped it would and could be.

***Spoilers Ahead***Spoilers Ahead***Spoilers Ahead***Spoilers Ahead***

Rowling has been trying to tie up all the threads of the preceding books since a rather long and awkward passage of exposition in books 5 and 6, and it does little more than slow down the books. In this book we get loads of expository reasoning that tries to pull together disparate plot elements. It merely serves to halt the action and bore the average reader. Rowling is at her best when she is writing dynamic action scenes, producing fantastical settings or creating interesting characters. Too late in the book she introduces the concept of the Deathly Hallows and tries to join it to the plot of the Horcruxes. It seems forced and unnecessary. The Horcrux invention from the last book was quite enough of a plot to carry the reader through this final installment. The Deathly Hallows lend nothing to the story, and Rowling does little with it in the plot. There is no satisfactory explanation as to the Gaunt ring being a Hallow and a Horcrux and why Voldemort would not have known it was. And frankly, I didn't care. I was waiting for the final showdown between him and Harry anyway. Why introduce the whole robbing Dumbledore's grave for a wand plot? It went nowhere and just held things up a bit more.

Another major problem in the book, as has been noted with previous books, is Harry himself. I was willing to put up with his uselessness in past books due to his age, but by this time I expected him to step up and prove himself. Instead, we get more petulance, whining and dithering. Hermione is smarter than he is, Ron, Ginny and Neville are braver, and Harry has to rely on outside help from a variety of sources (deus ex machina like Fawkes from book 2, his Invisibility Cloak in every book, and even Snape in this book) to achieve his goals. It's either this, dumb luck or coincidence that helps him locate the Horcruxes, seldom perseverance or intelligence. The final battle with Voldemort finds him again relatively passive, relying on his mother's protective charm and another coincidence to help him defeat Voldemort. Mrs. Weasley proves far more engaging in her face-off with Bellatrix. By page 450 I actively disliked Harry, which is a major problem since he's supposed to be the hero. He does redeem himself a bit in the later chapters, but it would have been far better if he had displayed more strength and intelligence earlier in the book.

I also didn't like the Lord of the Rings plot rip-off with the trio of friends taking turns carrying the one Horcrux around their necks even though it affects their moods. Again, no satisfactory explanation is given as to why it can't simply be carried harmlessly in a pocket or bag. If this was Rowling's idea of homage, it missed the mark. Further, I could have easily lived without the character assassination of Dumbledore. Was it really necessary, and again, where did it lead?

Having said this, there were a lot of good, well written scenes in the book, especially the Gringott's infiltration, and the final battle at Hogwarts. The book simply needed to be pared down to a reasonable length by a good editor who could keep the plot moving forward without clunky pauses to overexplain an overplotted narrative. As to the violence and dark tone of the book which some readers object to, I had no problem with it. It fit perfectly with where the story has been headed since the end of Goblet of Fire, and was to be expected. It would have been an unrealistic expectation to think that Voldemort could be defeated without losses on both sides. Overall then, a decent read, just a disappointing conclusion to a great book series. 3 1/2 stars out of 5

***Note: Some broad, vaguely worded spoilers.****

This is my least favorite Harry Potter book and it hurts to say so. I am a big fan, and have been since my older brother snuck me a copy (beneath my evangelical father's eyes) of Sorcerer's Stone. I am now all grown up and reading Harry Potter has been, in many ways, the mile marks of childhood for me. Let it be known that I don't give criticisms to JK Rowling lightly, and that while a great deal of what I have to say is negative, it's my honest opinion, and not disgruntled fanmenship.

I was at my local bookstore by 5 p.m. on Friday night and hit about the middle part of the line at the stroke of midnight. By 9 am on Saturday I was finished, finished, finished...

Despite my desperately anxious reading, many parts of the story dragged and it just didn't FEEL like Harry Potter. Hogwarts took second stage next to the hectic, dangerous travels of our fine trio. When the pieces started falling (from the sky, as it were) into place there was a hurriedness, a randomness, a helter-skelter dissonance that bothered me like an itch. The ending tasted like raw sugar by the spoonfull--it left me with a stomach ache, and frankly, it read like poorly written fan-fiction.

Rowling thrives on dialogue, indeed, I'd say she's one of the best writers of dialogue I've ever read. Yet she doesn't capitalize on that large talent, instead relying on a tentative weakness: the contemplative Harry. This was a grand mistake on her part.

We all knew, coming into this book, that there would be huge revelations about our favorite sadistic teacher. Sadly those revelations were anti-climactic, seen through the Pensieve and in the middle of a large...er..."disturbance" in the continuing present of Harry Potter Land. To remove Harry from the emotion of the present and put him in a calcified rendition of the past was jerky and rang false. In this sense there was no closure with Snape; Harry never got his showdown; Snape never got his moment of revelation where he shivers in all his bitters. I missed that interaction very much. I was looking forward to it.

That is the crux of my disappointment in the book: Harry's isolation and silence. Harry has always, always relied upon a wide bevy of friends, even in Order of the Phoenix, only marching to do battle alone at the emotional climax, wherein with a stroke of luck, he saves the day. In this book he remained continually withdrawn. I didn't laugh much, I didn't cry, and I felt trapped in a bubble throughout. I felt ostracized from this last book.

Some more problems I had with Harry Potter the Final:

-The individual deaths seemed to have no meaning in relation to the overall plot and character progression. In this way, they seemed gratuitous. Rowling has said in interviews that she gave one character a reprieve and as a result gave two others the slash. I have an idea which character got the reprieve, and think, while I would have been devastated at that death, it would have been a better book with that death, and without the obvious two deaths she opted for. It would have had meaning to the overall arc and swing. As was, I blinked slightly at two of my favorite characters' demise and plunged on without a tear.

-Too condensed. I felt like I was in a college lecture: Harry Potter 101. Interesting to the fan like me, but a novel isn't an encyclopedia, and shouldn't be made into one.

Okay. Okay. Enough of the negatives. Let's face it: This is Harry Potter! And all of us here love Harry. What were the things I loved?

-Just seeing my beloved characters. I missed them, and love them as if they were real. As long as they're around, even if they're not talking and even doing alot of dying, I'm happy.

-Harry Potter all grown up. I kept wondering throughout the frantic travelings if Harry Potter had a moustacne? A beard? Ron did at one point. I wonder if Harry got all prickly.

-Closure. Yeah. No more guessing. We know now. And the intricacies of plot were fantabulous. Thank you, JK.

In the second to the last chapter I swallowed hard. The last page! I saw Harry exit the pages before my eyes, walk through an open door. I felt like my childhood had just waved goodbye and maybe it just did.

Goodbye Harry Potter. We will all miss you!

I have been a firm believer since book one that the best way to enjoy Harry Potter is to listen to it on audiobooks. Wow does Jim Dale do an amazing job - again! How he is able to do the voices of over a hundred characters and make them each distinguishable, I do not know. The audiobooks sucks you in from the very first chapter. I feel like I'm there with the characters in the books listening in on private conversations. If you're going to live the Harry Potter experience, I highly recommend going with the audio books.

I'm going to start this review by saying that I'm an avid Harry Potter fan, worked THAT night in order to buy this book at midnight. I think Rowling is a good writer, but, I hate to say it, this book was a major disappointment to me. I expected much more considering where the six book left off, and the quality of the previous books. The first half of the book was excellent! It was well written and the descriptions were awesome. The only reason I think anyone would say the first half was slow was because they were so keen to get to the end! And then, halfway through, it dropped off. There was so much information that Rowling was throwing at the reader it was no longer descriptive.

Instead of narrating an interesting story she was telling you frankly what happened. It was rushed and non-descript, certainly not well written and not at all what you would expect from the author of this series. The women were reduced to laundresses and sniffling cry-babies, a far cry from the strong female characters present in books 1-6. The men were reduced to bumbling nobodies who get by mostly on luck, not skill and crazy hairbrained schemes that were so much fun to read.

***WARNING SPOILERS***

Another issue with this book is that, following the tradition of being not descriptive enough, most of the second half's character deaths are almost painfully anti-climactic. One moment they're there, and then suddenly they're dead.

It's terribly sad that characters like Lupin and Snape have less powerful deaths than Dobby and Hedwig.

The fact that Snape had such a large roll in the sixth book is misleading, he has nearly no part in this book until the end, where he does nothing but dies. His story is never explored or explained, except for a single chapter full of memories which are, I have to say, the highlight of this book when it comes to writing, that and Dobby's death.

***END SPOILERS***

My one big question, amidst many plot holes and inconsistencies, which I'll leave others to describe (and I see they have), is how did a magical object reappear at the end of the novel when it is last seen at Gringott's?

On a more positive note this book ties off all the loose ends, and would have been a fabulous ending to one of the most popular series of all time if only the author had put a bit more time and effort into writing the second half, instead of pleasing her fans with a deadline.

I understand that some of my disappointment is probably because there is no way this book could live up to its hype, after seventeen years of writing I'm sure Rowling was more than happy to put down her quill and move on from Harry Potter, but I think it's most unfortunate that the last book, which should have ended on a powerful and contented note, falls sadly short. The book's an alright read, but not what we've come to expect in a "Harry Potter" book.

All in all, 2 out of 5, and I WOULD NOT recommend this book for younger readers. Due to some disturbing scenes, and much (senseless without a reason or lesson to back them up) death, children under ten are probably not old enough to understand or fathom the violence.

Since this is the first Harry Potter book I have read, I had no preconceived ideas. Despite being almost eight hundred pages long, it was very well written. There is an abundance of exciting action throughout, with the lulls coming at just the right time. There are duels, battles, daring escapes, & odd twists of fortune. The growth & pairings of the characters showed signs of deep friendship & TLC. The author paints vivid pictures & the lines between good & evil are visible for all to see. The cult of "moral relativism," was refreshingly absent.

I found Harry's strong principles made him a very endearing character, he fought hard for what he believed in even if he suffered for it. Yes readers, the author told us some would die in this story. But, maybe not who you think? The secondary theme that love has redemptive qualities was also a good lesson for all readers regardless of age. Despite, it being about a hundred pages too long, "Deathly Hallows" was a truly great read. J.K.Rowling's imagination & artistic style won this reader over. I will surely read all of her past & future books.