Thursday, July 26, 2007

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling. Am I the only person that was thinking of Kipling's "If"? Here's the first stanza:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

I'm rather ambivalent. Was it a good story? Yes! Are there some problems? You better believe it. Did her editor actually do anything besides running spellcheck? The weaknesses that were in the earlier books seem to be magnified in this one. I quite enjoyed the final battle. The Lord of the Rings and Nazi Germany references totally lacked subtlety. I agree with the online consensus I don't like the epilogue. At least Harry does eventually get Wizard sex.

I'm too old [mid-twenties] for this to be my defining young adult series. The closest thing to that would probably be the Gordon Korman Macdonald Hall! books [which come to think of it also involves a boarding school] but still I'm sad to see it go. Now it's done 72 cassettes and 116 hours. I'll probably have more to say later I'm still digesting things.

Is available through Abebooks.



For more Science Fiction and Fantasy book reviews take a look at My Science Fiction and Fantasy bookshelf.

No comments: