Friday, July 27, 2007

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

My pre-ordered copy of the 7Th book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", finally arrived yesterday, so last night, eagerly, i started reading it.
The 600+pages managed to keep me quite busy, and i was able to finish it today in the evening, after a "harry potter marathon", sort of speaking!



Initial statement
I am a devoted fan of Harry Potter, i have watched every movie in premiere and pre-order almost all the books the minute Amazon let me to...

Warning
May contain spoilers!

Book review

I patiently waited almost a year (after the pre-order, but more than 3 years after I've finished the 6Th book) for the last chapter of Harry Potter adventures, and i don't know why i was sort of expecting something more... I mean, after reading on the official Rowling website about the prophecy and how it was "cleverly written" i thought that book 7 will present a twist in the development of action, something unexpected, something to let us breathless...

But the action was somehow predictable:
* Snape is a good guy after all (Dumbledore was not so foolish to trust him)
* Harry didn't die (come on, how could she killed him and disappoint millions of kids)
* Voldermort is killed, the world of wizards is saved
* Ron + Hermione finally become a couple
* Bill and Fleur got married
* Harry and Ginny remain a couple
* Hermione and Ron stud by Harry till the end, helping him
* one of the horcruxes being hided at Hogwarts... gush, who would've thought!

All the things above, didn't you expect them to happen? No twist, nothing unexpected here.

Another thing i disliked while reading the book was the way the deaths were treated (i mean described). No passion, no details, just a plain, almost unemotional presentation of the events. I mean, don't get me wrong, the book is well written, and although i may sound i didn't like it, i did! I just point some things that, well, that i observed during reading it. Another thing about the deaths: did it have any meaning at all to kill, let's say, Fred? Wouldn't it be more funny for example to keep him alive, and in the epilogue to present the twins as the richest Weasleys ever? All the humor the Rowling put in those 2 characters (my favorite through the episodes) was lost in the end, my one stupid death, with, after me, no meaning at all...

Also, the battle scenes maybe were a bit too many, and with too much spells shouted at every line, that you almost loose track of who is dueling who, or who is winning. I must confess, i had to read some battle scenes twice so i would understand for sure who spelled who, which of the characters were injured, and how etc...

But enough about what i didn't like... Let me tell you now about the things i really enjoyed in the book!
It seems to me that the book centered around Dumbledore, even though he was killed in the last chapter, and not around Harry Potter, which i really liked, and the way Harry Potter discovered bit by bit the truth about a much younger headmaster was extremely well put and very captivating. Also, the information on Harry's parents, and the new way Harry found himself related to Dumbledore, it gave the story a new element.
Some other miscellaneous things i liked:
* the new face of Kreacher, the house elf (by the way, Rowling forgot to tell us what happened to that poor creature after Harry and friends were forced to abandon the house from nr.12), on the good ones side
* Mrs Weasley is also one of favorite characters, and continued to be funny and witty in this book as well. The relation between her and the many red-headed children of hers is one of the funniest relation in the series. And it didn't disappointed me in this book either.
* Ron in his relation with Hermione was not sooo funny as in the last books, but we can enjoy some good, funny dialog between them

Well, those are my thoughts on the book... What did you liked/disliked about the last adventure of Harry Potter?

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