Harry Potter Book 7 review
Jul. 28th, 2007 08:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearI have to say I'm really glad I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows again - it was just all too stressful trying to take it all in the first time around. I read it much too fast and was too focused on finding out what happened next to really appreciate it at all. Anyway, a slower read over five days allowed me to actually enjoy it, and I have come to the conclusion that it's pretty good overall.
My biggest disappointment is that the writing is very clunky in places. There are several sentences that actually don't make sense, and a lot of the descriptions have so many subordinate clauses that I'd forgotten what the original object was by the time I got to the end. I think the book would have benefitted a great deal from one final read-through, but I can imagine JK was pretty sick of it by publication time, so I can understand how some things got missed. It's just annoying when clumsy phrasing pulls you out of the story.
My other gripe is that I just wanted more. I wanted the revelations to be more surprising (I'd guessed most of it beforehand, and the other "surprises" seemed incredibly obvious once they were revealed), I wanted more information about so many things both in the Harry Potter world in general and in the saga of the fight against Voldemort itself, and I particularly wanted updates about a lot more of the characters in the overly brief epilogue.
However, I thought the plot zinged along at a good pace, there was lots of exciting action and good character stuff, and I'm certainly going to be reading the whole series over and over again in the years to come. Luckily, my burgeoning obsession has been nipped in the bud - I wanted to go straight back to Book 1 and read them all again as soon as I'd finished 7 for the second time, but I have now leant it to a Harry Potter virgin whom I am hoping to convert.
My biggest disappointment is that the writing is very clunky in places. There are several sentences that actually don't make sense, and a lot of the descriptions have so many subordinate clauses that I'd forgotten what the original object was by the time I got to the end. I think the book would have benefitted a great deal from one final read-through, but I can imagine JK was pretty sick of it by publication time, so I can understand how some things got missed. It's just annoying when clumsy phrasing pulls you out of the story.
My other gripe is that I just wanted more. I wanted the revelations to be more surprising (I'd guessed most of it beforehand, and the other "surprises" seemed incredibly obvious once they were revealed), I wanted more information about so many things both in the Harry Potter world in general and in the saga of the fight against Voldemort itself, and I particularly wanted updates about a lot more of the characters in the overly brief epilogue.
However, I thought the plot zinged along at a good pace, there was lots of exciting action and good character stuff, and I'm certainly going to be reading the whole series over and over again in the years to come. Luckily, my burgeoning obsession has been nipped in the bud - I wanted to go straight back to Book 1 and read them all again as soon as I'd finished 7 for the second time, but I have now leant it to a Harry Potter virgin whom I am hoping to convert.
