9 of 17 members found this review helpful.
“I come to bury Harry, not to praise him
Because I really can’t praise this book, so I’ll attempt a great review, if not a review of a great novel.
The ending was disappointing, to say the least. Although there are touches in this book that I enjoyed – the obvious (if repetitive) double-entendres throughout, Ron’s humour, Kreacher turning into a dandelion clock Braveheart – the best I can say about it is that “it’s better than Half Blood Prince”. But seeing as how I thought the HBP was one of the worst books I have ever read, this is not saying much.
The thing is – before you yell at me for daring to voice my disappointment – I adored the first three books. She created a world that was a mixture of every kid’s favourites, school stories and magic – and although this had been done before, with varying degrees of success – somehow Harry hit the public imagination and these books took off in a way that The Worst Witch (to name but one) did not.
Then she layered in many wonderful characters, gave them an intriguing backstory, firm friendships, a past that spoke of sacrifice, loyalty danger and treachery – everything a saga needs
And then destroyed it all in Deathly Hallows.
There are many reasons I dislike this book: - the constant referral to an afterlife that she shouldn’t be referring to, Harry’s range of emotion (zero) and innate selfishness and inability to look beyond the end of his own nose, the build up of strong and feisty female characters only to denigrate them into wives, cooks and lovers, the token foreigners and almost rabid denial of any taint of homosexuality – but the worst thing about it is the obvious “oh my god I’ve nearly finished, now to kill people off so I can finish the book."
Consequently all of the deaths (which I won’t name) are dealt with so casually (even the Big Important Deaths) that you almost miss them – and characters that she has spent so much time and effort getting you to know and love – are cut down with almost no reference at all.
To me, this approach smacks to me that JKR has lost any respect she had for her reader. Add to that the canon discrepancies (which grow steadily worse and worse since book four) and the utterly unbelievable character assassinations (Ron fades away from a bright addition with promise in book one to a comic sidekick, and Hermione does nothing to deserve “brightest witch of her age” other than learn how to cook) and I ended up with a book which – after the initial thrill of the roller coaster left me with a very nasty taste in my mouth and a sense of wasted time.
Don’t get me wrong, JKR has proved that she can write a good adventure story, this (and all of the other books) is a page turner, but rather than being the Children’s Tolkien, I’m sorry to say that she’s proven herself to no better (and a great deal richer) than A Children’s Dan Brown.”
