Well, my two day sabbatical from The Revolution is over. Yeah, I’ll admit it that I’m a total Harry Potter freak. I’m not ashamed. After all, I proudly admit that I dead comic books and that certainly has a much great stigma attached to it than the Harry Potter books. Anyway, I got my copy of the final installment: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows on Friday night.
I showed up at my local Borders around 10:00 pm and proceeded to enjoy the people watching. Part of what makes events like these Harry Potter book release parties so entertaining are some of the real unusual people that you see. Some dressed in robes. Others in Quidditch outfits. Some dressed as various characters from the book. And, of course, you have the obligatory slutty witch or two. Of course, it is no stranger than some of the outfits you see at Wizard World Chicago.
After watching the parade of odd people assembled at Borders, we finally got to cue up at midnight. I then dutifully sat in line for an hour to get my copy of this book. I got home and started reading before I passed out. I woke up on Saturday and made a huge delicious pot of Café Bustelo and started reading in earnest. I managed to get my way to around page 500 before I retired for the evening. I was then up this morning and, after yet another wonderful pot of Café Bustelo, I begin reading the rest of the book. I finished this afternoon and all I can say is that I am very satisfied with this final installment of the Harry Potter series.
Needless to say, there simply was no chance that The Revolution was going to get around to any comic book reviews at all. If you read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows let me know what you thought. I’m trying to keep this post relatively spoiler free so as to not ruin the ending for anyone else. However, if you read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows let me know what you thought in the comments section. That way if you haven’t finished the book you can simply avoid the comments section to this post.
I think that J.K. Rowling did an excellent job ending this series. Rowling is an incredibly talented writer and I respect her work. What is the most amazing part of Rowling’s Harry Potter series is how it got people excited over a book! In the age of computers, the internet, video games and iPods, Rowling got people of all ages completely excited about a book. Watching people go nuts and get into massive lines at midnight just to buy a book made me happy.
I’m a Literature major and sometimes I worry that people don’t care much about books anymore or read as much as they should. Bashers can rip on the Harry Potter books all they want. The fact remains that at least Rowling got millions of people excited to read a book. And that is always a good thing.
4 thoughts on “Book Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”
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I really enjoyed the book but after the big death in half blood prince i was kind of hoping that jk rowling had another huge character death meaning one of the big three (harry, ron, or hermoine) but other than that I completely agree with you… on a side note the chapter princes’ tale who knew
I got my copy at 12:57 AM, Saturday morning (I worked at the Dairy Queen until 12:30), read until after 4 AM, took two more hours to fall asleep (it was after 6, and quite light out, when I fell asleep), woke up around noon, and read for the rest of the day, finishing the book at around 9 PM. I started reading this series in 1999 (I read the third book first, and then doubled back for the first two), so it’s been quite a journey over the years.
I thought it was fantastic. One of the best read alone, and, by managing to conclude the series so well (so many series derail at the end), I think it deserves to be called the best of them.
I was glad that Rowling didn’t kill any of the Big Three, and let them have a happy ending; while I like dark drama, I often feel that it’s become to de rigeur to off a major character just to give the story dramatic heft. They deserved to walk off into the sunset together, having survived due to the strength of their friendship.
The most remarkable part of this book for me was Dumbledore’s backstory, which gave him a lot of very human failings that more or less shatter the archetype of the Good Wizard, and at the same time I think he emerges as more heroic than ever as a result.
This book will make one long, incredibly expensive, incredibly kickass film; you don’t go fifty pages without a massive setpiece. The Battle of Hogwarts should be a legendary cinema moment.
I thought the book was a great end to the series. Borrowing the Revolution’s format, here is what I thought.
The Good: There was a lot of things going on and everything she talked about was relevant. She would reveal things at exactly the right time and I was captivated by it the whole time. The continues to expand the wizarding universe as she introduced several new ideas. I am amazed by her creativity on all this. Like Tolken, Lewis, L’Engle, and some of the other great fantasy storytellers, she created a believable world that appeared to be full of both present day activities but also history as well as a future.
The Bad:
there were often times where nothing happened. While this was realistic to what it was probably like camping for instance, it was not as entertaining at these parts for me. I think Ron would agree.
None of the main characters like the teachers or the majority of the students played a large role in this book. It was a good book but it felt like a new series almost. It was too different from the rest.
Overall: I liked it despite not being what I expected it to be. She did not let us down.
sorry Rokk, not into the whole Harry Potter deal, I don’t need K.J. Rowlings or whatever her name is to incite me to read like the rest of the country, I am constantly doing so