Now for the obligatory Harry Potter review.
In a nutshell, I was unimpressed, borderline unsatisfied. I don't feel like ranting on too long about it, and I don't want to give away any spoilers for those still reading. Basically, I think the first 500+ pages are boring and largely unnecessary. The last 250 or so are where the good stuff is, where the things we've been waiting to have addressed since the last book finally happen, and where we're finally hanging out with all of the characters and in all of the places we like so much but which have been absent the entire book so far. The whole book should have been the last 250 pages explored more fully instead of all the other crap that preceded it. Seriously, reading those first 500 pages was like homework. Ugh. And, because all the good stuff is jammed into the last 250, none of the characters get the treatment they deserve (Snape and Draco in particular are deserving of way more page time). Also, as with several of the other books, there's a tendency for Harry to seem like luggage, getting dragged around while everyone makes plans for and about him, without him even knowing until he's wrapped up in the middle of it. It's all a very frustrating experience.
4 comments:
i totally disagree mond! I enjoyed it thoroughly- it started off with a big bang, and although sure, it got sidetracked from time to time, i found it to pretty consistently keep me interested and turning pages. I do agree though that not enough time was given to Snape though- although for the purposes of the plot, i see why she kept it to a minimum.
[Possible spoilers here]
The end of HBP left me wondering about so many things, like is Snape good or bad, is Draco going to find redemption, is Harry a Horcrux, etc. I then had to wait 500 pages before any of that was addressed. Meanwhile, Rowling was adding yet more history (in the form of the Hallows) to a world that really didn't need it (the Hallows in general turned out to be pretty superfluous). Also, after the whole Dumbledore's Army thing, and the battle in the Ministry of Magic in OotP, I really felt we should have had more page time with people like Neville, and more Hogwarts in general, rather than, after 6 books of this really cool world, to stick Harry in a tent in the middle of nowhere for 500 pages, keeping us completely disconnected from it.
While, for me, the book could have been fun if you divorced it from everything the other books set you up for, I think Rowling failed the basic "meeting the customer's expectations" requirement by taking way too long to get around to the big issues that everyone had been talking about.
yes. that is all true. I also felt that the book had two major 'lulls' - the one in the forest and the one at the house. However, that being said, I felt like the two BOOKS between Goblet of Fire and Deathly Hallows were also two much bigger lulls- especially Half Blood Prince. I can't even see how they're going to milk a movie out of that one.
On the other hand, we went to see the Movie version of "Order of the Phoenix" last night, and I have to say that I think that was the first of the movies which was actually better than the book- hope the same holds true for the next one as well.
AND... I just finished reading "Brave New World", Mr. Mond! Very interesting... very interesting....
I thought Deathly Hallows was treat all the way through.
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