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Michelleyevshky, July 22, 2007

***Note: Some broad, vaguely worded spoilers.****

This is my least favorite Harry Potter book and it hurts to say so. I am a big fan, and have been since my older brother snuck me a copy (beneath my evangelical father's eyes) of Sorcerer's Stone. I am now all grown up and reading Harry Potter has been, in many ways, the mile marks of childhood for me. Let it be known that I don't give criticisms to JK Rowling lightly, and that while a great deal of what I have to say is negative, it's my honest opinion, and not disgruntled fanmenship.

I was at my local bookstore by 5 p.m. on Friday night and hit about the middle part of the line at the stroke of midnight. By 9 am on Saturday I was finished, finished, finished...

Despite my desperately anxious reading, many parts of the story dragged and it just didn't FEEL like Harry Potter. Hogwarts took second stage next to the hectic, dangerous travels of our fine trio. When the pieces started falling (from the sky, as it were) into place there was a hurriedness, a randomness, a helter-skelter dissonance that bothered me like an itch. The ending tasted like raw sugar by the spoonfull--it left me with a stomach ache, and frankly, it read like poorly written fan-fiction.

Rowling thrives on dialogue, indeed, I'd say she's one of the best writers of dialogue I've ever read. Yet she doesn't capitalize on that large talent, instead relying on a tentative weakness: the contemplative Harry. This was a grand mistake on her part.

We all knew, coming into this book, that there would be huge revelations about our favorite sadistic teacher. Sadly those revelations were anti-climactic, seen through the Pensieve and in the middle of a large...er..."disturbance" in the continuing present of Harry Potter Land. To remove Harry from the emotion of the present and put him in a calcified rendition of the past was jerky and rang false. In this sense there was no closure with Snape; Harry never got his showdown; Snape never got his moment of revelation where he shivers in all his bitters. I missed that interaction very much. I was looking forward to it.

That is the crux of my disappointment in the book: Harry's isolation and silence. Harry has always, always relied upon a wide bevy of friends, even in Order of the Phoenix, only marching to do battle alone at the emotional climax, wherein with a stroke of luck, he saves the day. In this book he remained continually withdrawn. I didn't laugh much, I didn't cry, and I felt trapped in a bubble throughout. I felt ostracized from this last book.

Some more problems I had with Harry Potter the Final:

-The individual deaths seemed to have no meaning in relation to the overall plot and character progression. In this way, they seemed gratuitous. Rowling has said in interviews that she gave one character a reprieve and as a result gave two others the slash. I have an idea which character got the reprieve, and think, while I would have been devastated at that death, it would have been a better book with that death, and without the obvious two deaths she opted for. It would have had meaning to the overall arc and swing. As was, I blinked slightly at two of my favorite characters' demise and plunged on without a tear.

-Too condensed. I felt like I was in a college lecture: Harry Potter 101. Interesting to the fan like me, but a novel isn't an encyclopedia, and shouldn't be made into one.

Okay. Okay. Enough of the negatives. Let's face it: This is Harry Potter! And all of us here love Harry. What were the things I loved?

-Just seeing my beloved characters. I missed them, and love them as if they were real. As long as they're around, even if they're not talking and even doing alot of dying, I'm happy.

-Harry Potter all grown up. I kept wondering throughout the frantic travelings if Harry Potter had a moustacne? A beard? Ron did at one point. I wonder if Harry got all prickly.

-Closure. Yeah. No more guessing. We know now. And the intricacies of plot were fantabulous. Thank you, JK.

In the second to the last chapter I swallowed hard. The last page! I saw Harry exit the pages before my eyes, walk through an open door. I felt like my childhood had just waved goodbye and maybe it just did.

Goodbye Harry Potter. We will all miss you!

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