J K Rowling – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

“To Rowling’s great credit, she manages this finale with the flair and respect for her audience that have permeated the previous six novels, though the mood here is quite different.”

NO MAJOR SPOILERS

I’ve read this book more times than I care to remember, but I can still remember the feelings it evoked the first time, every time I pick it up. The final book, the end of an era, and the closing of what had been a great part of my life, and my children growing up.

The anticipating on starting the first page was so great, I wanted to read it so badly but I was so scared it would finally be over. As it happens, I read it in a day, I just couldn’t put it down and I devoured the entire thing, closed the cover turned the book over and read it again.

Did it live up to the years and years of story building and anticipation? Yes! A million times, yes! Rowling you are a master storyteller and The Deathly Hallows is one of my favourite series endings ever. It’s clever, it’s pacy, it ties you up in knots and leads you off in misdirection and then it brings you straight back to the discoveries the story holds.

We start of course with the start of what can only be a wizarding war. Voldemort is back, there is no pretending any more, and Harry knows that it’s him who has to end him. As usual the three friends, for the most part, stick together and Rowling tests the strengths and weaknesses of all of them. I feel like Hermione really comes into her own in this book, even if she can’t rush off to the library. She gives the entire thing direction, even when Harry is not being much of a hero at all. That’s what I love about Rowling, she writes human character, imperfect, realistic people.

There couldn’t fail to be a battle in the final book, and what a battle it is! I think the movie really misses the spot for the Battle of Hogwarts, it’s a hundred times better in the book, and Rowling again writes it realistically. There are deaths, there is grief, but in the end there is an overwhelming sense that all is well.