Book Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

It began for me almost seven weeks ago (Monday July 23rd) and now after many hours and thousands of pages later, I can say I have finished the seven books of the Harry Potter series for the first time. I was pleased that I could finish the seventh book - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - in under a week's time, despite it being the second largest book in the series.

First off, I have to give major props to J.K. Rowling for delivering the goods in this final installment. I mean, literally, wow! It was a roller-coaster ride in every sense of the word. Just when you thought things couldn't get crazier, BAM - she delivers another exciting chapter. I said when I discussed the sixth book last week that that one seemed like it was doing a lot of set up for the finale - and now I can say I see where the set-up in that book (and many of the earlier ones too) paid off well in.

I enjoyed immensely that she was able to bring back all of the old faces and places from earlier in the series to help make the pay-off of this one deliver. And, she also added a bunch of new characters, locales and details to further flesh out the world in which these wizards and witches live. The old is balanced out well with the peppering of the new.

And, of course, she did what every writer sometimes has to do - you have to break a few eggs (or in this case bump off a few of your creations) in order to tell the story you want to tell. As a writer myself, albeit an amateur one, I totally understand and respect that.

The ending was a little bit predictable - or at least some of what I wanted to happen did happen. So, if it is predictable but what a reader desires, it's not a bad thing, eh?

I do have major concerns on how Hollywood is going to pull off the film for this book and for the sixth book. I think this book is going to be so jam-packed that they'll have to make it 3 1/2 hours at least just to do the whole story justice. I also think they left out key things in the fifth film that are pertinent to the sixth and seventh films. They'll have to do a little shifting or a lot of expository dialogue to pull it off. As for me, I am glad I've read these as books first, so I get the full, wonderful story in all the details.

Now I can begin reading other stuff from the pile of books on my nightstand.