I just got slammed by a co-worker for not saying that I absolutely loved this book. Well, I didn’t. I enjoyed it. It was pretty good, but it wasn’t the best book in the world. One problem: an uneven plot. We’re hit with some pretty actionful scenes, including a very upsetting death, a less upsetting death, and the death of someone whom we’ve never met (not in that order). Then – the lull. Nearly 1/4 of the book takes place in the Valley of Nothing Happens, and this disappoints me. Sure, there’s a little bit of interaction among the Big 3, but that’s about it. Then, off to the races! The action that would’ve been better served spread out through the last 3/4 of the book comes at us in the last half, and it’s pretty exciting. It doesn’t always make sense, and some of it feels like “let’s parade some of our minor characters through to make up for focusing on H, H, and R for even more of the book than usual”, but it’s exciting and the plot moves, and some of it will look really cool in the movie. (How much does this affect authors, once they know they’ve got a series sold? The pressure to draw people into the theatre must be terrible.)
Overall, though, I had a good time reading the book. There’s closure, mostly. We’ve been wondering how things are going to turn out for a while now, and we know. Some things turned out like we wanted and hoped for them to, and some things didn’t. There’s some happiness, and a great deal of sadness (and we could’ve had more, but I feel like some events were mashed in so tightly that we didn’t get a chance to appreciate them and grieve).
Still, we get some surprising views of some characters, and others finally reach the potential we knew they had, and either way, it’s fun to visit with those whom we’ve come to know over the last seven years (well, you know what I mean).
What else to say? Either you’re a Harry Potter fan and you’ll read this, or you’re not and you won’t.
