Book Review: Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows
May 2nd, 2008 by admin
- J.K. Rowling
This is it, the last of the series and I finally got around to it. By the time this is up on the net it will be entirely obsolete because everybody that cares will have already read it. So why am I still typing this?
Not exactly sure.
As expected, this book wraps up the last year of schooling for the young Wizards who had no idea the mess they were in for when they started their first year in Hogwarts. Hunted by pretty much every organization in authority which has fallen to the Death Eaters (either willingly or otherwise), Harry, Hermione and Ron are on the run, hunting down Horcruxes, in an effort to get to Voldemort before he becomes too powerful.
No Quidditch matches this time around…hell, there is not even school for the main characters who find it too dangerous to even attend. What results is a wrap up of the first six years in a pretty satisfactory manner that ties up all the lose ends and explains all of those characters that felt like they were hanging up in the air.
If you enjoyed the first six books, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that you will enjoy this one. If you have not enjoyed the first six books…I think this one is probably the strongest and you would enjoy it, but, there is no point in reading the conclusion to a series without knowing the body of it, particularly since this time around Rowling does not do such a good job at refreshing us on what happened in book six. So, at some points, you do have to do some recollection to remember who a particular character is. Though in the end, it all does add up nicely and even if you forgot the details of book six, by the time you finish this one it all makes sense. In other words: no, it is not necessary to go back and re-read The Half Blood Prince.
However, just as was the case with the other books, this is still an adolescent sort of literature. There is no challenge here and no mind blowing plot complexities. It is simple, entertaining reading that goes by in a blink, but by no means an astounding work of literature.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Catergory: Fiction
Notes: On my rating, I am giving it 4.5 out of 5 on that level of reading, which, as I have explained above, is more on an adolescent level.