Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (7.5/10)

J.K. Rowling
Fantasy


I found the final Harry P novel a difficult one to read. The story seemed to have moved away from Hogwarts (and quiddich, etc.), and this left it without its core. In addition to this I felt that the time that Harry, Hermione and Ron spent in the wilderness was boring and caused the book to lose momentum. I recognize that this may have been an intentional device by the author to make the reader feel some of the suffering that Harry felt, but frankly I think there are better ways to work with your readers.

I also felt that once again J.K.R. was making it up as she went along and that story elements from past novels where being used in ways they had not been originally intended.

I was however pleased with the resolution of the Snape storyline, the plot has always benfited from Snape, with his ambivalent morality, and the final reveal was a good one. I do feel that more hints about this could have been left earlier in the books.

The finale was very good, and certainly worthy of the series, I was not surprised by the resurrection theme, as Harry was clearly going to die, and I felt that the author had no intentions of letting that bring down the whole series.

Would have liked a bit more dialogue between Harry and Ginny towards the end as well, that seemed to finish with words left unsaid…

Ultimately I believe that the great writers have a very good idea of where they are going when they begin their stories and I felt that JKR was staying only a book ahead of the readers in her plot planning. Tough? perhaps, but it was a constant concern with me from about book 3 of this series.

Readability (4/5) – Lost points for the boring bit in the middle, but the rest was easy to read.
Quality (3.5/5) – She made it up as she went along (with the probable exception of the Snape storyline).