For those of you who don’t know, the 7th and final Harry Potter book hit the shelves on th 21st. As most other eager fans, I went down to the local Wal-mart at midnight to grab myself a copy. My wife and I spent almost the next day straight reading. I wish to post my reactions to the book here. Now, I’m telling you right now. If you didn’t read the book yet and you don’t wish to subject yourself to spoilers, don’t click the read more link.

I found Harry Potter to be an unusual Harry Potter book for several reasons. First off, they don’t go to school. We are used to hearing about how Harry, Ron, and Hermione are doing at school. How Ron is incapable at potions and always copying Hermiones homework. We hear about the sorting and the big feasts. Well, this book didn’t have any of that. It felt strange, but by no means made the book any less enjoyable. That being said, I think that had they gone to school, that would not have followed the plot that had been laid out for us in the previous books.

The other thing that made this book more unusual than the others is that Voldemort played a much more significant role. We heard about him quite a lot in the other books, but his appearances were rare. He showed up in this book all the time. This should make for some great moments when they film the book.

The other thing that appreciated about this book is the J.K. Rowling didn’t have a problem killing people off. Take a book like Lord of the Rings. Very few important characters are dead when the story comes to a close. I find it highly unlikely that, as skilled of warriors as the main characters are, that they would make there way through the entire adventure.

One part that I had a problem with was when Ron left Harry and Hermione. I know that the horcrux was making him act funny, but even under the circumstances, I don’t think he would have acted that irrationally. Harry and Hermione wore the horcrux too, and although they acted kind of strange, they didn’t go to such extremes. It felt a little bit out of character for Ron.

I loved the intesity of this book. We’ve had small sections of intensity throughout the Harry Potter series, but this book was especially intense. The part that I enjoyed most was when they were at the wedding party and Kingsley Shacklebolt’s patronus showed up and told them that Death Eaters were on their way. It sent chills up my spine.

Although I’m not much of a crier, the part that I think had the most emotional impact on me was the chapter about Snape. I can honestly say that I felt bad for him. He seemed to have a rough life at the beginning, but then went on to be one of the biggest heros of the series. J.K. Rowling lead may people on making us believe that he was pure evil, but he ended up being one of the best.

All in all, I really enjoyed this book. It was different than the other books and had a much more intense and dark feeling. It was a good ending to the series and it did a good job at answering my many questions.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 24th, 2007 at 5:31 pm and is filed under Harry Potter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.