![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
Harry Potter Book 7
Well I got the book this morning and started reading it at 12:20am. By 5:30am I was finished! Now it's light and I'm not tired so may just not go to bed at all...
Well I was certainly entralled and couldn't turn the next page fast enough, and generally I thought Harry's life was wrapped up neatly, although I fell for the bluff 50 pages from the end and was sure he was dead meat. Dumbledore was fleshed out much more and it was satisfying to finally learn his backstory, and I liked the explaination behind Snape's actions. I may have sqeaked with joy a small bit when the other teachers all started fighting him and he flew out the window - that will hopefully look so cool when they finally film-ify it... As you can see I have few philosophical opinions on the plot and meanings of minor character's names - this isn't exactly an in-depth review. I just mostly liked it.
However there were an awful lot of deaths. I'd heard rumours that rather than just one much-loved character dying it was more like a bloodbath and I think I'd agree with that assessment. It's almost easier to name who survived than who was dead by the end! Lupin and Tonks were my two favourite characters so their almost in-passing deaths annoyed me quite a bit. And I almost cried when they killed Hedwig right at the start, the bastards. That was just cruel! After a while the deaths just mounted up so much they failed to have the individual impact of say Cedric's death in GoF. So now Colin Creevey's been killed - big deal! Chalk him up with the 70-odd others... That was the main element of the book I didn't much like.
Anyhoo mass killings aside I did otherwise like it and I think it's a satisfying end to the series. Not exactly a feelgood-novel and not one I'll go back to time and time again, but not everything can be rainbows and kittens. Not when you're dealing with good vs. evil. If good always completely wiped the floor with evil and no one got hurt it wouldn't really be evil...
I await mass public opinion over the next few days to see if I'm in the minority or majority with my views!
Well I got the book this morning and started reading it at 12:20am. By 5:30am I was finished! Now it's light and I'm not tired so may just not go to bed at all...
Well I was certainly entralled and couldn't turn the next page fast enough, and generally I thought Harry's life was wrapped up neatly, although I fell for the bluff 50 pages from the end and was sure he was dead meat. Dumbledore was fleshed out much more and it was satisfying to finally learn his backstory, and I liked the explaination behind Snape's actions. I may have sqeaked with joy a small bit when the other teachers all started fighting him and he flew out the window - that will hopefully look so cool when they finally film-ify it... As you can see I have few philosophical opinions on the plot and meanings of minor character's names - this isn't exactly an in-depth review. I just mostly liked it.
However there were an awful lot of deaths. I'd heard rumours that rather than just one much-loved character dying it was more like a bloodbath and I think I'd agree with that assessment. It's almost easier to name who survived than who was dead by the end! Lupin and Tonks were my two favourite characters so their almost in-passing deaths annoyed me quite a bit. And I almost cried when they killed Hedwig right at the start, the bastards. That was just cruel! After a while the deaths just mounted up so much they failed to have the individual impact of say Cedric's death in GoF. So now Colin Creevey's been killed - big deal! Chalk him up with the 70-odd others... That was the main element of the book I didn't much like.
Anyhoo mass killings aside I did otherwise like it and I think it's a satisfying end to the series. Not exactly a feelgood-novel and not one I'll go back to time and time again, but not everything can be rainbows and kittens. Not when you're dealing with good vs. evil. If good always completely wiped the floor with evil and no one got hurt it wouldn't really be evil...
I await mass public opinion over the next few days to see if I'm in the minority or majority with my views!
2 comments | Leave a comment