Allow me to begin by saying I refuse to spoil any part of any of these books for anyone for any reason. If you haven't read the books, stop here, buy them, read them, return...
That being said, instead of detailing the book (as I normally would in a review) I'll recount my own experience:
I pre-ordered this book when it first became available to do so. At that time, I had not read any of the books, but had seen the first four movies based upon the books. I promptly purchased the 6 books which precede the Deathly Hallows and read them.. the Order of the Phoenix I read three times, the Half Blood Prince I read twice and completed my second read one week prior to the release of the Deathly Hallows. I was intent on reading the series and this final book before anyone could spoil the ending for me. You see, I had already learned the fate of ... some of the characters involved in OOP and HBP, because there are people in this world who live off of the pleasure of ruining things for other people. I was determined to read the series and this final book before some loud mouth jerk could ruin it for me. I succeeded.
With one week to go for the book release I began thinking that perhaps all these questions swelling inside of me - is Snape friend or foe? where are the horcruxes? will Harry live? - and so many other questions did not need answering. The magic of this series was in bringing out the discussion, the last few months (well over a year, actually) have had fans on the edges of their collective seats, casting about all kinds of theory and conjecture, ideas born of the tiniest details about mundance things. The magic - the true magic of it all - was in bringing together generations of readers in discussion about one of our era's literary masterworks.
One week to go to get the book, and I was telling myself that I'd rather not read it, that I'd rather put it neatly on a shelf, so that no matter what happens to who, the magic would always live on, the dicussions would never end, the theories and conjectures would continue to bind readers together. A very noble, yet unrealistic notion, I agree. I had my fears that certain characters would die, and in not reading this book, I theorized that they would live forever if I never read about their deaths.
The evening prior to the book's release, my daughter attended a Potter party at a Barnes & Noble book store. She is not a fan - she likes the movies, but she's not a fan of science fiction or fantasy, and has refused to read the books. Okay. She's entitled to her tastes. But she attended the party because some of her friends are Potter fans. I sat home, jealous that I wasn't a teenager and therefore way too old to attend a Potter party. I should have gone, I regret not going - the last of the Potter hooplas, the last Hallow's Ball. At any rate, my daughter brought home a wand and some Potter glow-in-the-dark eye glasses for me. I would like to have gone, but how sad is it to see a 40-something woman dressed as a witch for a Potter party? Perhaps not sad at all, but I feared being the oldest witch at the party...
At midnight, I leaped from my seat and counted down the 60 seconds to the 12:01am mark of release of the book. My husband, who is use to my insane moments such as this, simply looked at me and nodded off.
The next day - delivery day! - I cleaned every square inch of my house waiting for the UPS delivery van to pull up and bring me my book. I started cleaning at 8am... the book arrived at 4pm. A full day of scrubbing everything around me in a vain attempt to make the time go faster so that the book would finally arrive. I knew that once the book did arrive, nothing would get done.
I had two hours to read the opening chapters of the book, because we had planned to make an excursion to a drive-in movie theater that evening to see the Order of the Phoenix movie. I very reluctantly put the precious book down for the evening.
Sunday, July 22nd: the day I was able to spend every waking hour with Harry Potter and Co. I gathered the book, a bottle of water, a blanket and pillow, and headed out to my backyard where I have a hammock which hangs by a stream, overlooking a deep patch of woods. My own Forbidden Forest, of sorts.
It is now Tuesday afternoon, and the book is completed. I spent some time re-reading chapters before completing the book, just to make sure I had fully absorbed everything.
It is a wonderful book, it answers just about everything you'd want answered. There are some questions which are left open, and perhaps JKR did this to keep alive the discussions, or perhaps these questions are answered already (and the books need to be re-read). But mostly everything you'd want answered is indeed answered, albeit some things are way off from what many of us believed. Some, however, are right on. I recall several times yelling outloud, "I knew it!" There were MANY times when I sat here with a hand over my mouth, in stunned awe at what I was reading. And still, there were plenty of times I burst out crying.
No disappointment in the way this book was written, the way the whole story comes to its fruition, or the way the characters who survive, survive. And that little "crack" that JKR says she slipped in there incase she wanted to return to the 'wizarding world?' Yes, I even liked that (I don't normally). It works. It all works. It all makes perfect sense, and it could not have ended any other way.
Thank you - thank you - thank you - JKR. Thank you for such a wonderful fantasy, a wonderful world and this awesome, incredible boy, Harry Potter. Thank you.
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About the author
Great book but came tinted
Came with this mark. I mean, I know Harry have a scar, but that's closer to Bill's one.
Top reviews from other countries
Elinor Florence
A satisfying conclusion to an epic tale
Reviewed in Canada on October 6, 2024